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INVENTORS 



MEN OF ACHIEVEMENT SERIES 



TRAVELLERS AND EXPLORERS. By 
General A. W. Greely, U.S.A. 

STATESMEN. By Noah Brooks. 

MEN OF BUSINESS. By W. O. Stoddard. 

INVENTORS. By P. G. Hubert, .Jr. 




BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 



•X 



MEN OF ACHIEVEMENT 



INVENTORS 



BY 



PHILIP G/HUBERT, jR. 




NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1896 






\^ 



Copyright, 1893, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Press of J. J. Little & Co. 
Astor Place, New York 



PREFACE 

This book, dealing with our great inventors, 
their origins, hopes, aims, principles, disappoint- 
ments, trials, and triumphs, their daily life and 
personal character, presents just enough con- 
cerning their inventions to make the story 
intelligible. The history is often a painful one. 
When poor Goodyear, the inventor of vulcan- 
ized rubber, was one day asked what he wanted 
to make of his boys, he is said to have replied : 
" Make them anything but inventors ; mankind 
has nothing but cuffs and kicks for those who try 
to do it a service." 

Meanwhile, the value of the work done by 
great inventors is widely acknowledged. In a 
remarkable sketch of the history of civilization. 
Professor Huxley remarked, in 1887, that the 
wonderful increase of industrial production by 
the application of machinery, the improvement 
of old technical processes and the invention of 
new ones, constitutes the most salient feature of 
the world's progress during the last fifty years. 
If this was true a few years ago, its truth is still 
more apparent to-day. It is safe to say that 
within fifty years power, light, and heat will cost 
half, perhaps one-tenth, of what they do now ; and 
this virtually means that in 1943 mankind will be 



4 PREFACE 

able to buy decent food, shelter, and clothing for 
half or one-tenth of the labor now required. 
Steam is said to have reduced the working 
hours of man in the civilized world from four- 
teen to ten a day. Electricity will mark the 
next giant step in advance. 

With the many and superb tools now at our 
service, of which our fathers knew comparatively 
nothing — steam, electricity, the telegraph, tele- 
phone, phonograph, and the camera — we and our 
descendants ought to accomplish even greater 
wonders than these. As invention thus rises in 
the scale of importance to humanity, the history 
of the pioneers and, to the shame of mankind be 
it said, the martyrs of the art, becomes of in- 
tense interest. In the annals of hero-worship the 
inventor of the perfecting press ought to stand 
before the great general, and Elias Howe should 
rank before Napoleon. Whitney, Howe, Morse, 
and Goodyear, to mention but a few of our 
Americans, contributed thousands of millions of 
dollars to the nation's wealth and received com- 
paratively nothing in return. Their history sug- 
gests as pertinent the inquiry whether our patent 
laws do not need a radical change. The bur- 
den and cost of proving that an invention de- 
serves no protection ought to fall upon who- 
ever infringes a patent granted by the Govern- 
ment. At present it is all the other way. 

P. G. H., Jr. 

New York, September, 1893. 



CONTENTS 



I. Benjamin Franklin, 
II. Robert Fulton, 

III. Eli Whitney, , 

IV. Elias Howe, 
/ V. Samuel F. B. Morse, 

VI. Charles Goodyear, 
VII. John Ericsson, 
VIII. Cyrus Hall McCormick, 
/ IX. Thomas A. Edison, 

X. Alexander Graham Bell, 
XI. American Inventors, Past and Present 

James M. Townsend, E. L. Drake, Alvan Clark, 
John Fitch, Oliver Evans, Amos Whittemore, Thomas 
Blanchard, Richard M. Hoe, Thomas W. Harvey, C. 
L. Sholes, B. B. Hotchkiss, Charles F. Brush, Rudolph 
Eickemeyer, George Westinghouse, Jr. . 



9 

45 
69 

99 
III 

155 
178 

207 

223 

264 

270 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



FULL- PAGE 

FACING 

Benjamin Franklin, . . . . {Frontispiece.) face 

Departure of the Clermont on her First Voyage, 6o 

Charles Goodyear, 155 

John Ericsson, 178 

Cyrus Hall McCormick, 207 

Thomas A. Edison, 223 

Edison in his Laboratory, 247 

Professor Bell Sending the First Telephone Mes- 
sage FROM New York to Chicago, .... 264 



ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT 



The Franklin Stove, 

Franklin's Birthplace, Boston, 

Franklin Entering Philadelphia, 

The Franklin Penny, 

Franklin's Grave, .... 

Robert Fulton, .... 

Birthplace of Robert Fulton, 

Fulton Blowing Up a Danish Brig, 

John Fitch's Steamboat at Philadelphia, 

Fulton's First Experiment with Paddle-wheels, 

The "Demologos," or "Fulton the First," 

The Clermont, 

Eli Whitney, 

Whitney Watching the Cotton-Gin, 
The Cotton-Gin, . . . 
Elias Howe, 



PAGE 
10 

14 

17 
27 

43 
46 

48 

53 

56 

57 

65 
68 

70 

75 

78 

100 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 7 

PAGE 

Birthplace of S. F. B. Morse, Built 1775, . . ,111 

S. F. B. Morse, .113 

Under Side of a Modern Switchboard, showing 

2,000 Wires, 121 

The First Telegraph Instrument, as Exhibited in 

1837 BY Morse, . . 125 

The Modern Morse Telegraph, 127 

Morse Making his own Instrument, . . . .129 
Train Telegraph — the Message Transmitted by In- 
duction FROM the Moving Train to the Single 

Wire, 131 

Interior of a Car on the Lehigh Valley Railroad, 
showing the Method of Operating the Train 

Telegraph, , . . ^ 132 

Diagram showing the Method of Telegraphing 

from a Moving Train by Induction, . . . 134 
Morse in his Study, 139 

The Siphon Recorder for Receiving Cable Mes- 
sages — Office of the Commercial Cable Com- 
pany, I Broad Street, New York, .... 146 

No. 5 West Twenty-second Street, New York, where 

Morse Lived for Many Years and Died, . . 151 

Calenders Heated Internally by Steam, for Spread- 
ing India Rubber into Sheets or upon Cloth, 

CALLED THE " ChAFFEE MACHINE," .... 164 

Charles Goodyear's Exhibition of Hard India-rub- 
ber Goods at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, 
England, 169 

Council Medal of the Exhibition, 185 i, . . .173 

Grande Medaille d'Honneur, Exposition Universelle 

DE 1855, 176 

John Ericsson's Birthplace and Monument, . . 180 

The Novelty Locomotive, built by Ericsson to com- 
pete WITH Stephenson's Rocket, 1829, . . . 184 

Ericsson on his Arrival in England, aged Twenty- 
three, . 186 

Mrs. John Ericsson, nee Amelia Byam, . . .187 



8 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Exterior View of Ericsson's House, No. 36 Beach 

Street, New York, 1890, 189 

Solar-engine Adapted to the Use of Hot Air, . . 191 
Sectional View of Monitor through Turret and 

Pilot-house, 198 

The Original Monitor, 199 

Fac-simile of a Pencil Sketch by Ericsson, giving a 

Transverse Section of his Original Monitor 

Plan, with a Longitudinal Section drawn over it, 201 

Interior of the Destroyer, Looking toward the Bow, 202 

Development of the Monitor Idea, .... 204 
The Room in which Ericsson Worked for More 

than Twenty Years, 206 

Farm where Cyrus H. McCormick was Born and Raised, 209 
Exterior of the Blacksmith Shop where the First 

Reaper was Built, 212 

Interior of the Blacksmith Shop where the First 

Reaper was Built, 215 

The First Reaper, 217 

Edison's Paper Carbon Lamp, 224 

Edison Listening to his Phonograph, .... 227 
From Edison's Newspaper, the " Grand Trunk 

Herald," 230 

Edison's Tinfoil Phonograph — the First Practical 

Machine, 237 

Vote Recorder — Edison's First Patented Invention, 243 

Edison's Menlo Park Electric Locomotive (1880), . 250 

The Home of Thomas A. Edison, 257 

Edison's Laboratory, 258 

Library at Edison's Laboratory, 262 

Alvan Clark, , . 276 

C. L. Sholes, 286 

B. B. Hotchkiss, 288 

Charles F. Brush, 290 

Rudolph Eickemeyer, 294 

George Westinghouse, Jr., 296 



INVENTORS 

I. 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

Benjamin Franklin's activity and resource 
in the field of invention really partook of the in- 
tellectual breadth of the man of whom Turgot 
wrote : 

" Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis." 

" He snatched the thunderbolt from heaven, 
And the sceptre from the hands of tyrants." 

And of which bit of verse Franklin once dryly 
remarked, that as to the thunder, he left it where 
he found it, and that more than a million of his 
countrymen co-operated with him in snatching 
the sceptre. Those persons who knew Franklin, 
the inventor, only as the genius to whom we owe 
the lightning-rod, will be amazed at the range of 
his activity. For half a century his mind seems 
to have been on the alert concerning the why 
and wherefore of every phenomenon for which 
the explanation was not apparent. Nothing in 
nature failed to interest him. Had he lived in 
an era of patents he might have rivalled Edison 
in the number of his patentable devices, and had 




10 INVENTORS 

he chosen to make money from such devices, his 
gains would certainly have been fabulous. As 
a matter of fact, Franklin never applied for a 

patent, though frequently 
urged to do so, and he made 
no money by his inventions. 
One of the most popular of 
these, the Franklin stove, 
which device, after a half- 

The Franklin Stove. CCUtury of dlsUSC, 1 S U O W 

again popular, he made a 
present to his early friend, Robert G race, an iron 
founder, who made a business of it. The Gov- 
ernor of Pennsylvania offered to give Franklin a 
monopoly of the sale of these stoves for a num- 
ber of years. '' But I declined it," writes the 
inventor, " from a principle which has ever 
weighed with me on such occasions, viz. : That 
as we enjoy great advantages from the inven- 
tions of others, we should be glad of an oppor- 
tunity to serve others by any invention of ours ; 
and this we should do freely and generously. 
An ironmonger in London, however, assuming a 
good deal of my pamphlet (describing the prin- 
ciple and working of the stove), and working it 
up into his own, and making some small change 
in the machine, which rather hurt its opera- 
tion, got a patent for it there, and made, as I 
was told, a little fortune by it." 

The complete list of inventions, devices, and 
improvements of which Franklin was the origi- 
nator, or a leading spirit and contributor, is so 
long a one that a dozen pages would not suffice 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 11 

for it. I give here a brief summary, as compiled 
by Parton in his excellent " Life of Franklin." 
''It is incredible," Franklin once wrote, " the 
quantity of good that may be done in a country 
by a single man who will make a business of it and 
not suffer himself to be diverted from that pur- 
pose by different avocations, studies, or amuse- 
ments." As a commentary upon this sentiment, 
here is a catalogue of the achievements of Benja- 
min Franklin that may fairly come under the 
title of inventions : 

He established and inspired the Junto, the 
most useful and pleasant American club of which 
we have knowledge. 

He founded the Philadelphia Library, parent 
of a thousand libraries, and which marked the 
beginning of an intellectual movement of endless 
good to the whole country. 

He first turned to great account the engine of 
advertising, an indispensable element in modern 
business. 

He published *' Poor Richard," a record of 
homely wisdom in such shape that hundreds 
of thousands of readers were made better and 
stronger by it. 

He created the post-office system of America, 
and was the first champion of a reformed spelling. 

He invented the Franklin stove, which econo- 
mized fuel, and suggested valuable improve- 
ments in ventilation and the building of chim- 
neys. 

He robbed thunder of its terrors and lightning 
of some of its power to destroy. 



12 INVENTORS 

He founded the American Philosophical So- 
ciety, the first organization in America c the 
friends of science. 

He suggested the use of mineral manures, in- 
troduced the basket willow, promoted the early 
culture of silk, and pointed out the advisability 
of white clothing in hot weather 

He measured the temperature of the Gulf 
Stream, and discovered that northeast storms 
may begin in the southwest. 

He pointed out the advantage of building 
ships in water-tight compartments, taking the 
hint from the Chinese, and first urged the use of 
oil as a means of quieting dangerous seas. 

Besides these great achievements, accom- 
plished largely as recreation from his life work 
as economist and statesman, Benjamin Franklin 
helped the whole race of inventors by a remark 
that has been of incalculable value and comfort 
to theorists and dreamers the world over. When 
someone spoke rather contemptuously in Frank- 
lin's presence of Montgolfier's balloon experi- 
ments, and asked of what use they were, the 
great American replied in words now historic : 
" Of what use is a new-born babe ? " 

"■ This self-taught American," said Lord Jef- 
frey, in the Edinburgh Revieiv of July, 1806, '* is 
the most rational, perhaps, of all philosophers. 
He never loses sight of common sense in any of 
his speculations. No individual, perhaps, ever 
possessed a greater understanding, or was so 
seldom obstructed in the use of it by indolence, 
enthusiasm, or authority. Dr. Franklin received 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 13 

no ^egular education ; and he spent the greater 
part of his life in a society where there was no 
relish and no encouragement for literature. On 
an ordinary mind, these circumstances would 
have produced their usual effects, of repressing 
all sorts of intellectual ambition or activity, and 
perpetuating a generation of incurious mechan- 
ics ; but to an understanding like Franklin's, we 
cannot help considering them as peculiarly pro- 
pitious, and imagine that we can trace back to 
them distinctly almost all the peculiarities of his 
intellectual character." 

The main outlines of Franklin's life and ca- 
reer are so familiar to everyone, that I may as 
well pass at once to the story of his work as an 
inventor. We all know, or ought to know, that 
Benjamin, the fifteenth child of Josiah Franklin, 
the Boston soap-boiler, was born in that town 
on the 17th of January, 1706, and established him- 
self as a printer in Philadelphia in 1728. That 
he prospered and founded the Gazette a few 
years later, and became Postmaster of Phila- 
delphia in 1737; that after valuable services to 
the Colonies as their agent in England, he 
was appointed United States Minister at the 
Court of France upon the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence ; and that in 1782 he had the supreme 
satisfaction of signing at Paris the treaty of 
peace with England by which the independence 
of the Colonies was assured. That he died full 
of honors at Philadelphia in April, 1790, and that 
Congress, as a testimony of the gratitude of the 
Thirteen States and of their sorrow for his loss, 



14 



INVENTORS 



appointed a general mourning throughout the 
States for a period of two months. 

The great invention or discovery which entitles 




oston. 



Benjamin Franklin to 
rank at the head of 
American inventors was, of course, the identifi- 
cation of lightning with electricity, and his sug- 
gestion of metallic conductors so arranged as 
to render the discharge from the clouds a harm- 
less one. In order to appreciate the originality 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 15 

and value of this discovery, it is necessary to re- 
view briefly what the world knew of the subject 
at that day. 

For a hundred years before Franklin's time, 
electricity had been studied in Europe without 
much distinct progress resulting. A thousand 
experiments had been performed and described. 
Gunpowder had been exploded by the spark 
from a lady's finger, and children had been in- 
sulated by hanging them from the ceiling by 
silk cords. A tolerable machine had been de- 
vised for exciting electricity, though most ex- 
perimenters still used 2i glass tube. Several 
volumes of electrical observations and experi- 
ments had appeared, and yet what had been 
done Avas little more than a repetition on a 
larger scale, and with better means, of the orig- 
inal experiment of rubbing a piece of amber 
on the sleeve of the philosopher's coat. Experi- 
menters in 1745 could produce a more powerful 
spark and play a greater variety of tricks with 
it than Dr. Gilbert, the English experimenter of 
1600, but that was about all the advantage they 
had over him. 

So-called experts had attempted, with more or 
less satisfaction to themselves, to answer the 
question addressed by the mad Lear to poor 
Tom : '' Let me talk with this philosopher. 
What is the cause of thunder?" Pliny thought 
he had explained it when he called it an 
earthquake in the air. Dr. Lister announced 
that lightning was caused by the sudden ig- 
nition of immense quantities of fine floating 



16 INVENTORS 

sulphur. Jonathan Edwards, in his diary of 
1722, records the popular impression of the 
day upon this subject : " Lightning," he says, 
"seems to be an almost infinitely fine combus- 
tible matter, that floats in the air, that takes 
fire by sudden and mighty fermentation, that is 
some way promoted by the cool and moisture, 
and perhaps attraction of the clouds. By this 
sudden agitation, this fine floating matter is 
driven forth with a mighty force one way or 
other, whichever way it is directed, by the cir- 
cumstances and temperature of the circumja- 
cent air ; for cold and heat, density and rarity, 
moisture and dryness, have almost an infinitely 
strong influence upon the fine particles of mat- 
ter. This fluid matter thus projected, still fer- 
menting to the same degree, divides the air as 
it goes, and every moment receives a new im- 
pulse by the continued fermentation ; and as its 
motion received its direction, at first, from the 
different temperature of the air on different 
sides, so its direction is changed, according to the 
temperature of the air it meets w^ith, which 
renders the path of the lightning so crooked." 

Even this explanation was a daring bit of spec- 
ulation in Jonathan Edwards, for thunder and 
lightning were then commonly regarded as the 
physical expression of God's wrath against the 
insects He had created. 

Mr. Peter Collinson, the London agent of the 
library that Franklin had founded in Philadel- 
phia in 1732, was accustomed to send over with 
the annual parcel of books any work or curious 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 



17 



object that chanced to be in vogue in London at 
the time. In 1746 he sent one of the new electri- 




Franklin Entering Philadelphia. 



v^- 



cal tubes with a paper of directions for using it. 
The tubes then commonly used were two feet 
and a half long, and as thick as a man could con- 
veniently grasp. They were rubbed with a piece 
2 



18 INVENTORS 

of cloth or buckskin, and held in contact with 
the object to be charged. Franklin had already 
seen one of these tubes in Boston, and had been 
astonished by its properties. No sooner, there- 
fore, was it unpacked at the Library, than he re- 
peated the experiments he had seen in Boston, 
as well as those described by Collinson. The 
subject completely fascinated him. He gave 
himself up to it. Procuring other tubes, he dis- 
tributed them among his friends and set them 
all rubbing. " I never," he writes in 1747, ''was 
before engaged in any study that so totally 
engrossed my attention and my time as this has 
done ; for what with making experiments when 
I can be alone, and repeating to my friends and 
acquaintances, who, from the novelty of the 
thing, come continually in crowds to see them, I 
have during some months past had little leisure 
for anything else." 

Franklin claimed no credit for what he 
achieved in electricity. During the winter of 
1746-7 he and his friends experimented frequent- 
ly, and observed electrical attraction and repul- 
sion with care. That electricity was not created, 
but only collected by friction, Avas one of their 
first conjectures, the correctness of whicli they 
soon demonstrated by a number of experiments. 
Before having heard- of the Ley den jar coated 
with tin-foil, these Philadelphia experimenters 
substituted granulated lead for the water em- 
ployed by Professor Maschenbroeck. They 
fired spirits and lighted candles with the electric 
spark. They performed rare tricks with a spider 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 19 

made of burnt cork. Philip Syng mounted one 
of the tubes upon a crank and employed a cannon- 
ball as a prime conductor, thus obtaining the same 
result without much tedious rubbing of the tube. 

The summer of 1747 was devoted to preparing 
the province for defence. But during the fol- 
lowing winter the Philadelphians resumed their 
experiments. The wondrous Leyden jar was the 
object of Franklin's constant observation. His 
method of work is well shown in his own ac- 
count of an experiment during this winter. The 
jar used was Maschenbroeck's original device of 
a bottle of water with a wire running through 
the cork. 

'' Purposing," writes Franklin, " to analyse the 
electrified bottle, in order to find wherein its 
strength lay, we placed it on glass, and drew out 
the cork and wire, which for that purpose had 
been loosely put in. Then, taking the bottle in 
one hand, and bringing a finger of the other near 
its mouth, a strong spark came from the water, 
and the shock was as violent as if the Avire had 
remained in it, which showed that the force did 
not lie in the Avire. Then, to find if it resided in 
the water, being crowded into and condensed in 
it, as confined by the glass, which had been our 
former opinion, we electrified the bottle again, 
and placing it on glass, drew out the wire and 
cork as before ; then, taking up the bottle, we 
decanted all its water into an empty bottle, 
which likewise stood on glass ; and taking up 
that other bottle, we expected, if the force re- 
sided in the water, to find a shock from it. But 



20 INVENTORS 

there was none. We judged then that it must 
either be lost in decanting or remain in the first 
bottle. The latter we found to be true ; for 
that bottle on trial gave the shock, though filled 
up as it stood with fresh unelectrified water 
from a tea-pot. To find, then, whether glass had 
this property merely as glass, or whether the 
form contributed anything to it, we took a pane 
of sash glass, and laying it on the hand, placed 
a plate of lead on its upper surface ; then elec- 
trLfied that plate, and bringing a finger to it, 
there was a spark and shock. We then took 
two plates of lead of equal dimensions, but less 
than the glass by two inches every way, and 
electrified the glass between them, by electrify- 
ing the uppermost lead ; then separated the 
glass from the lead, in doing which, what little 
fire might be in the lead was taken out, and the 
glass being touched in the electrified parts with 
a finger, afforded only very small pricking 
sparks, but a great number of them might be 
taken from different places. Then dexterously 
placing it again between the leaden plates, and 
completing a circle between the two surfaces, a 
violent shock ensued ; which demonstrated the 
power to reside in glass as glass, and that the 
non-electrics in contact served only, like the ar- 
mature of a loadstone, to unite the force of the 
several parts, and bring them at once to any point 
desired ; it being the property of a non-electric, 
that the whole body instantly receives or gives 
what electrical fire is given to, or taken from, 
any one of its parts. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 21 

" Upon this we made what we called an elec- 
trical battery, consisting of eleven panes of large 
sash glass, armed with thin leaden plates, pasted 
on each side, placed vertically, and supported at 
two inches' distance on silk cords, with thick 
hooks of leaden wire, one from each side, stand- 
ing upright, distant from each other, and con- 
venient communications of wire and chain, from 
the giving side of one pane to the receiving side 
of the other ; that so the whole might be charged 
together with the same labor as one single 
pane." 

In 1748 Franklin, being then forty-two years 
old, and in the enjoyment of an ample income 
from his business as printer and publisher, sold 
out to his foreman, David Hall, and was free 
to devote himself wholly to his beloved experi- 
ments. He had built himself a home in a retired 
spot on the outskirts of Philadelphia, and with 
an income which in our days would be equiva- 
lent to $15,000 or $20,000 a year, he was consid- 
ered a fairly rich man. Having thus settled his 
business affairs in a manner which proved that 
he knew perfectly well what money was worth, 
he took up his electrical studies again and ex- 
tended them from the machine to the part 
played in nature by electricity. The patience 
with which he observed the electrical phenomena 
of the heavens, the acuteness displayed by him 
in drawing plausible inferences from his obser- 
vations, and the rapidity with which he arrived 
at all that we now know of thunder and light- 
ning, still excite the astonishment of all who 



22 INVENTORS 

read the narratives he has left us of his proceed- 
ings. During the whole winter of 1748-49 and 
the summer following, he was feeling his way 
to his final conclusions on the subject. Early 
in 1749 he drew up a series of fifty-six observa- 
tions, entitled " Observations and Suppositions 
towards forming a new Hypothesis for explain- 
ing the several Phenomena of Thundergusts." 
Nearly all that he afterward demonstrated on 
this subject is anticipated in this truly remarka- 
ble paper, which was soon followed by the most 
famous of all his electrical writings, that en- 
titled " Opinions and Conjectures concerning 
the Properties and Effects of the Electrical 
Matter, and the Means of preserving Buildings, 
Ships, etc., from Lightning ; arising from Ex- 
periments and Observations made at Philadel- 
phia, 1749." 

Franklin sets forth in this masterly paper the 
similarity of electricity and lightning, and the 
property of points to draw off electricity. It is 
this treatise which contains the two suggestions 
that gave to the name of Franklin its first celeb- 
rity. Both suggestions are contained in one 
brief passage, which follows the description of a 
splendid experiment, in which a miniature light- 
ning-rod had conducted harmlessly away the 
electricity of an artificial thunder-storm. 

" If these things are so," continues the philoso- 
pher, after stating the results of his experiment, 
" may not the knowledge of this power of points 
be of use to mankind in preserving houses, 
churches, ships, etc., from the stroke of light- 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 23 

ning, by directing us to fix on the highest part 
of those edifices upright rods of iron, made 
sharp as a needle and gilt to prevent rusting, and 
from the foot of those rods, a wire down the out- 
side of the building into the ground, or down 
round one of the shrouds of a ship, and down 
her side till it reaches the water? Would not 
these pointed rods probably draw the electrical 
fire silently out of a cloud before it came nigh 
enough to strike, and thereby secure us from 
that most sudden and terrible mischief ? " 

The second of these immortal suggestions was 
one that immediately arrested the attention of 
European electricians when the paper was pub- 
lished. It was in these words : 

*' To determine the question, whether the 
clouds that contain lightning are electrified or 
not, I would propose an experiment to be tried 
where it may be done conveniently. On the top 
of some high tower or steeple, place a kind of 
sentry-box, big enough to contain a man and an 
electric stand. From the middle of the stand let 
an iron rod rise and pass, bending out of the 
door, and then upright twenty or thirty feet, 
pointed very sharp at the end. If the electrical 
stand be kept clean and dry, a man standing on 
it, when such clouds are passing low, might be 
electrified and afford sparks, the rod drawing 
fire to him from a cloud. If any danger to the 
man should be apprehended (though I think 
there would be none), let him stand on the floor 
of his box, and now and then bring near to the 
rod the loop of a wire that has one end fastened 



24 INVENTORS 

to the leads, he holding it by a wax handle ; so 
the sparks, if the rod is electrified, will strike 
from the rod to the wire and not affect him." 

A friend once asked Franklin how he came to 
hit upon such an idea. His reply was to quote 
an extract from the minutes he kept of the ex- 
periments he made. This extract, dated No- 
vember 7, 1749, was as follows: " Electrical fluid 
agrees with lightning in these particulars: i. 
Giving light. 2. Color of the light. 3. Crooked 
direction. 4. Swift motion. 5. Being conducted 
by metals. 6. Crack or noise in exploding. 7. 
Subsisting in water or ice. 8. Rending bodies 
it passes through. 9. Destroying animals. 10. 
Melting metals. 11. Firing inflammable sub- 
stances. 12. Sulphurous smell. The electric 
fluid is attracted by points. We do not know 
whether this property is in lightning. But since 
they agree in all the particulars wherein we can 
already compare them, is it not probable they 
agree likewise in this? Let the experiment be 
made." 

In this discovery, therefore, there was nothing 
of chance ; it was a legitimate deduction from 
patiently accumulated facts. 

It was not until the spring of 1752 that Frank- 
lin thought of making his suggested experiment 
with a kite. The country around Philadelphia 
presents no high hills, and he was not aware till 
later that the roof of any dwelling-house would 
have answered as well as the peak of Teneriffe. 
There were no steeples in Philadelphia at that 
day. The vestry of Christ Church talked about 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 25 

erecting a steeple, but it was not begun until 
1753- On the r5th of June, 1752, Franklin de- 
cided to fly that immortal kite. Wishing to 
avoid the ridicule of a failure, he took no one 
with him except his son, who, by the way, was 
not the small boy shown in countless pictures 
of the incident, but a stalwart young man of 
twenty-two. The kite had been made of a large 
silk handkerchief, and fitted out with a piece of 
sharpened iron wire. Part of the string was of 
hemp, and the part to be held in the hand was of 
silk. At the end of the hempen string was tied 
a key, and in a convenient shed was a Leyden jar 
in which to collect some of the electricity from 
the clouds. When the first thunder-laden clouds 
reached the kite, there were no signs of elec- 
tricity from Franklin's key, but just as he had 
begun to doubt the success of the experiment, 
he saw the fibres of the hempen string begin to 
rise. Approaching his hand to the key, he got 
an electric spark, and was then able to charge the 
Leyden jar and get a stronger shock. Then the 
happy philosopher drew in his wet kite and 
went home to write his modest account of one of 
the most notable experiments made by man. 

Franklin's fame as the first to suggest the 
identity of lightning and electricity would have 
been safe, however, even without the famous 
kite-flying achiev^ement. A month before that 
June thunderstorm his suggestions had been put 
into practice in Europe with complete success. 
Mr. Peter Collinson, to whom Franklin ad- 
dressed from time to time long letters about his 



26 INVENTORS 

experiments and conjectures, had caused them 
to be read at the meetings of the Royal Society, 
of which he (Collinson) was a member. That 
learned body, however, did not deem them 
worthy of publication among its transactions, 
and a letter of Franklin's containing the sub- 
stance of his conjectures respecting lightning 
was laughed at. The only news that reached 
Philadelphia concerning these letters was that 
Watson and other English experimenters did not 
agree with Franklin. It was only in May, 175 1, 
that a pamphlet was finally published in London, 
entitled '' New Experiments and Observations in 
Electricity, made at Philadelphia, in America." 
A copy having been presented to the Royal So- 
ciety, Watson was requested to make an abstract 
of its contents, which he did, giving generous 
praise to the author. 

Before the year came to a close Franklin was 
famous. There was something in the drawing 
down, for mere experiment, of the dread electric- 
ity of heaven that appealed not less powerfully 
to the imagination of the ignorant than to the 
understanding of the learned. And the marvel 
was the greater that the bold idea should have 
come from so remote a place as Philadelphia. 
By a unanimous vote the Royal Society elected 
Franklin a member, and the next year bestowed 
upon him the Copley medal. Yale College and 
then Harvard bestowed upon him the honorary 
degree of Master of Arts. 

As might have been expected, there was no 
lack of opposition to the new doctrine of light- 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 



27 



ning-rods. Every new movement of radical char- 
acter is denounced more or less fiercely. The last 
years of Newton's life were perplexed by the 
charge that his theory of gravitation tended to 
*' materialize " religion. Insuring houses against 
fire was opposed as an interference with the pre- 
rogatives of deity. The establishment of the 
Ro3^al Society was opposed upon the ground 
that the study of natural philosophy, grounded, 
as it was, upon experimental evidence, tended to 




The Franklin Penny. 

weaken the force of evidence not so founded ; 
and this objection was deemed of sufficient 
weight to call for serious answer. Franklin's 
daring proposal to neutralize the " artillery of 
heaven," of course could not escape, and the im- 
piety of lightning-rods was widely discussed, 
often with acrimony. Mr. Kinnersley, one of 
Franklin's friends, who lectured for several years 
upon electricity, when advertising the outline of 
his subject always announced his intention to 
show that the erection of lightning-rods was 
'' not chargeable with presumption nor incon- 
sistent with any of the principles either of nat- 



28 INVENTORS 

ural or revealed religion." Quincy relates in 
his '' History of Harvard College," that in 
November, 1755, a shock of earthquake having 
been felt in New England, a Boston clergy- 
man preached a sermon on the subject, in 
which he contended that the lightning-rods, by 
accumulating the electricity in the earth, had 
caused the earthquake. Professor Winthrop, 
of Harvard, thought it worth while to defend 
Franklin. '' In 1770," Mr. Quincy adds, '' another 
Boston clergyman opposed the use of the rods 
on the ground that, as the lightning was one of 
the means of punishing the sins of mankind, and 
of warning them from the commission of sin, it 
was impious to prevent its full execution." And 
to this attack also Professor Winthrop replied. 
Apparently Franklin himself thought it wise to 
conciliate the opposition of some so-called relig- 
ious people of the day, for an account of the 
lightning-rod which appears in Poor Richard's 
Almanac for 1753, written probably by Franklin, 
begins as follows : '' It has pleased God in his 
Goodness to Mankind, at length to discover to 
them the Means of securing their Habitations 
and other Buildings from Mischief by Thunder 
and Lightning." 

Franklin bore his honors with the most re- 
markable modesty. It was in June that he flew 
his first kite, but not until October that he sent 
to Mr. Collinson an account of the experiment, 
and even then he described the manner of making 
and flying the kite and omitted all reference to 
his own success with it. The identity of lightning 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 29 

with electricity having been established by M. 
Dalibard, he deemed it unnecessary to forward 
the account of an experiment which, however 
brilliant, he thought superfluous. Accordingly, 
we have no narrative by Franklin of the flying 
of the kite. We owe our knowledge of what 
occurred on that memorable afternoon to per- 
sons who heard Franklin tell the story. Frank- 
lin prefaces his description of his kite with these 
words : " As frequent mention is made in public 
papers from Europe of the success of the Phila- 
delphia experiment for drawing the electric fire 
from clouds by means of pointed rods of iron 
erected on high buildings, it may be agreeable 
to the curious to be informed that the same 
experiment has succeeded in Philadelphia, 
though made in a different and more easy man- 
ner, which is as follows." And then we have 
the description of the kite, the letter ending 
without reference to what he himself had done 
with it. 

Yet he was far from hiding the pleasure his 
fame brought him. ''The Ti^/Z^r," he wrote, in 
1 75 3 J to a friend, " tells us of a girl who was ob- 
served to grow suddenly proud, and none could 
guess the reason, till it came to be known that 
she had got on a pair of new silk garters. Lest 
you should be puzzled to guess the cause, when 
you observe anything of the kind in me, I think 1 
will not hide my new garters under my petti- 
coats, but take the freedom to show them to you 
in a paragraph of our friend CoUinson's last 
letter, viz. — But I ought to mortify, and not in- 



30 INVENTORS 

dulge, this vanity ; I will not transcribe the para> 
graph — yet I cannot forbear." Then he quotes 
the paragraph, which mentions the honors done 
him by the King of France and the Royal Society. 

For twenty years Franklin continued to work at 
electricity, devoting most of his leisure to his be- 
loved study. The great practical value of the 
lightning-rod, at one time in the early part of this 
century somewhat exaggerated, as a perfect pro- 
tection against harm by lightning, just as electric- 
ity was at one time heralded as a panacea for all 
bodily ailments, has of late years been questioned, 
but the consensus of scientific opinion still attrib- 
utes much merit to the device, and the extent of 
Franklin's services to science in the matter can- 
not be called into doubt. Others have claimed 
his discoveries. The Abbe Nolet, of France, has 
been credited as being the first to note the simi- 
larity between electricity and lightning ; and M. 
Romas, of Nerac, France, is said to have used a 
kite with a copper wire wound around the 
string, to attract electricity from clouds, some 
time before Franklin made his experiment. But 
posterity has ignored these claimants, and Frank- 
lin had the happiness of escaping bitter conten- 
tions with rivals. In fact, there could hardly 
have been a quarrel with a man who claimed 
nothing, who mentioned with honor everybody's 
achievements but his own, and who recorded 
his most brilliant observations in the plural, as 
though he were but one of a band of investigat- 
ing Philadelphians. 

Passing now to Franklin's connection with the 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 31 

use of oil to still dangerous waves, I had occa- 
sion recently to note that Lieutenant W. H. 
Beehler, of the United States Navy, in writing 
upon the matter, quotes Franklin's explanation 
of why oil works so beneficently as the accepted 
theory. Franklin was greatly interested, when 
at sea, in studying the matter. Any phenome- 
non that puzzled him was fit subject for investi- 
gation. Let us see how he went about the in- 
quiry. "In 1757," he wrote, *' being at sea in a 
fleet of ninety-six sail bound against Louisburg, 
I observed the wakes of two of the ships to be 
remarkably smooth, while all the others were 
ruffled by the wind which blew fresh. Being 
puzzled with the differing appearance, I at last 
pointed it out to our captain and asked him the 
meaning of it. ' The cooks,' says he, ' have, I 
suppose, been just emptying their greasy water 
through the scuppers, which has greased the 
sides of those ships a little ;' and this answer he 
gave me with an air of some little contempt, as 
to a person ignorant of what everybody else 
knew. In my own mind I at first slighted his 
solution, though I was not able to think of an- 
other ; but recollecting what I had formerly 
read in Pliny, I resolved to make some experi- 
ment of the effect of oil on water, when I should 
have opportunity. Afterwards, being again 
at sea in 1762, I first observed the wonderful 
quietness of oil on agitated water, in the swing- 
ing glass lamp I made to hang up in the cabin, 
as described in my printed papers. This I was 
continually looking at and considering, as an ap- 



32 INVENTORS 

pearance to me inexplicable. An old sea cap- 
tain, then a passenger with me, thought little of 
it, supposing it an effect of the same kind with 
that of oil put on water to smooth it, which he 
said was a practice of the Bermudians when they 
would strike fish, which they could not see if 
the surface of the water was ruffled by the wind. 
The same gentleman told me he had heard it 
was a practice with the fishermen of Lisbon, 
when about to return into the river (if they saw 
before them too great a surf upon the bar, which 
they apprehended might fill their boats in pass- 
ing) to empty a bottle or two of oil into the sea, 
which would suppress the breakers, and allow 
them to pass safely. A confirmation of this I 
have not since had an opportunity of obtaining ; 
but discoursing of it with another person, who 
had often been in the Mediterranean, I was in- 
formed that the divers there, who, when under 
water in their business, need light, which the 
curling of the surface interrupts by the refrac- 
tions of so many little waves, let a small quantity 
of oil now and then out of their mouths, which 
rising to the surface smooths it, and permits the 
light to come down to them. All these infor- 
mations I at times resolved in my mind, and 
wondered to find no mention of them in our 
books of experimental philosophy. 

" At length being at Clapham where there is, 
on the common, a large pond, which I observed 
one day to be very rough with the wind, I 
fetched out a cruet of oil and dropped a little of 
it on the water. I saw it spread itself with sur- 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 33 

prising swiftness upon the surface ; but the effect 
of smoothing the waves was not produced ; for 
I had applied it first on the leeward side of the 
pond, where the waves were largest, and the 
wind drove my oil back upon the shore. I then 
went to the windward side, where they began 
to form ; and there the oil, though not more 
than a teaspoonful, produced an instant calm 
over a space several yards square, which spread 
amazingly, and extended itself gradually, till it 
reached the lee side, making all that quarter of 
the pond, perhaps half an acre, as smooth as a 
looking glass. 

" A gentleman from Rhode Island told me it 
had been remarked that the harbor of Newport 
was ever smooth while any whaling vessels were 
in it ; which probably arose from hence, that 
the blubber, which they sometimes bring loose 
in the hold, or the leakage of their barrels, 
might afford some oil to mix with that water, 
which, from time to time, they pump out to keep 
their vessel free, and that some oil might spread 
over the surface of the water in the harbor and 
prevent the forming of any waves." 

Thus Franklin collected his facts, taking them 
far and near, and from anybody and everybody. 
By dint of observation and reflection he finally 
solved the problem, arriving at the conclusion 
that ** the Avind blowing over water thus covered 
with a film of oil, cannot easily catch upon it, so 
as to raise the first wrinkles, but slides over it, 
and leaves it smooth as it finds it." 

Another remarkable instance of Franklin's pas- 
3 



84 INVJiJNTORS 

sion for investigation is afforded in the following 
interesting letter to Sir John Pringle : " When 
we were travelling together in Holland, you re- 
marked that the canal boat in one of the stages 
went slower than usual, and inquired of the boat- 
man what might be the reason ; who answered 
that it had been a dry season, and the water in 
the canal was low. On being asked if it was so 
low that the boat touched the muddy bottom, 
he said no, not so low as that, but so low as to 
make it harder for the horse to draw the boat. 
We neither of us at first could conceive that, if 
there was water enough for the boat to swim 
clear of the bottom, its being deeper would make 
any difference. But as the man affirmed it seri- 
ously as a thing well known among them, and 
as the punctuality required in their stages was 
likely to make such difference, if any there Avere, 
more readily observed by them than by other 
watermen who did not pass so regularly and con- 
stantly backwards and forwards in the same 
track, I began to apprehend there might be 
something in it, and attempted to account for it 
from this consideration, that the boat in proceed- 
ing along the canal must, in every boat's length 
of her course, move out of her way a body of 
water equal in bulk to the room her bottom took 
up in the water ; that the water so moved must 
pass on each side of her, and under her bottom, to 
get behind her ; that if the passage under her 
bottom was straitened by the shallows, more of 
the water must pass by her sides, and with a 
swifter motion, which would retard her, as mov- 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 35 

ing the contrary way ; or that, the water becom- 
ing lower behind the boat than before, she was 
pressed back by the weight of its difference in 
hight, and her motion retarded by having that 
weight constantly to overcome. But, as it is of- 
ten lost time to attempt accounting for uncertain 
facts, I determined to make an experiment of 
this, when I should have convenient time and 
opportunity. 

" After our return to England, as often as I 
happened to be on the Thames, I enquired of our 
watermen whether they were sensible of any 
difference in rowing over shallow or deep water. 
I found them all agreeing in the fact that there 
was a very great difference, but they differed 
widely in expressing the quantity of the differ- 
ence ; some supposing it was equal to a mile in 
six, others to a mile in three. As I did not rec- 
ollect to have met with any mention of this 
matter in our philosophical books, and conceiv- 
ing that, if the difference should be really great, 
it might be an object of consideration in the 
many projects now on foot for digging new 
navigable canals in this island, I lately put my 
design of making the experiment in execution, 
in the following manner. 

" I provided a trough of planed boards fourteen 
feet long, six inches wide, and six inches deep in 
the clear, filled with water within half an inch of 
the edge, to represent a canal. I had a loose 
board of nearly the same length and breadth, 
that being put into the water, might be sunk to 
any depth, and fixed by little wedges where I 



36 INVENTORS 

would choose to have it stay, in order to make 
different depths of water, leaving the surface at 
the same hight with regard to the sides of the 
trough. 1 had a little boat in form of a lighter 
or boat of burden, six inches long, two inches 
and a quarter wide, and one inch and a quarter 
deep. When swimming it drew one inch of 
water. To give motion to the boat, I fixed one 
end of a long silk thread to its bow, just even 
with the water's edge, the other end passed over 
a well-made brass pulley, of about an inch in 
diameter, turning freely upon a small axis ; and 
a shilling was the weight. Then placing the 
boat at one end of the trough, the weight would 
draw it through the water to the other. Not 
having a watch that shows seconds, in order to 
measure the time taken up by the boat in passing 
from end to end of the trough, I counted as fast 
as I could count to ten repeatedly, keeping an 
account of the number of tens on my fingers. 
And, as much as possible to correct any little in- 
equalities in my counting, I repeated the experi- 
ment a number of times at each depth of water, 
that I might take the medium." 

The experiment proved the truth of the 
boatmen's assertions. Franklin found that five 
horses would be required to draw a boat in a 
canal affording little more than enough water to 
ffoat it, which four horses could draw in a canal 
of the proper depth. 

No circumstance, remarks Mr. Parton, was 
too trifling to engage him upon a series of exper- 
iments. At dinner, one day, a bottle of Madeira 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 37 

was opened which had been bottled in Virginia 
many months before. Into the first glass poured 
from it fell three drowned flies. '' Having heard 
it remarked that drowned flies were capable of 
being revived by the rays of the sun, I proposed 
making the experiment upon these ; they were 
therefore exposed to the sun upon a sieve which 
had been employed to strain them out of the 
wine. In less than three hours two of them be- 
gan by degrees to recover life. They com- 
menced by some convulsive motions of the 
thighs, and at length they raised themselves 
upon their legs, wiped their eyes with their fore- 
feet, beat and brushed their wings with their 
hind feet, and soon after began to fly, finding 
themselves in Old England without knowing 
how they came thither. The third continued 
lifeless till sunset, when, losing all hopes of him, 
he was thrown away." And upon this he re- 
marks : '' I wish it were possible, from this in- 
stance, to invent a method of enbalming drowned 
persons in such a manner that they may be re- 
called to life at any period, however distant ; for 
having a very ardent desire to see and observe 
the state of America a hundred years hence, I 
should prefer to any ordinary death being im- 
mersed in a cask of Madeira wine, with a few 
friends, till that time, to be then recalled to life 
by the solar warmth of my dear country." 

Among the studies in natural philosophy of 
which but little is known to the general pub- 
lic may be mentioned Franklin's experiments 
with heat at a time when a thermometer was a 



38 INVENTORS 

scientific curiosity. The manner in which he 
proved that black cloth was not so good a cov- 
ering for the body in hot weather as white, 
shows the simplicity of his methods and his 
faculty for making small means subserve great 
ends : " I took a number of little square pieces 
of broadcloth from a tailor's pattern-card, of 
various colors. There were black, deep blue, 
lighter blue, green, purple, red, yellow, white, 
and other colors or shades of colors. I laid 
them all out upon the snow in a bright sunshiny 
morning. In a few hours the black, being 
warmed most by the sun, was so low as to be be- 
low the stroke of the sun's rays ; the dark blue 
almost as low, the lighter blue not quite so much 
as the dark, the other colors less as they were 
lighter, and the quite white remained on the 
surface of the snow, not having entered it at all. 
What signifies philosophy that does not apply to 
some use ? May we not learn from hence that 
black clothes are not so fit to wear in a hot, 
sunny climate or season as white ones? " That 
all summer hats, particularly for soldiers, should 
be white, and that garden walls intended for 
fruit should be black, were suggestions put forth 
as a result of this experiment. 

Dr. Small assigns to Franklin the credit of 
having discovered that repeated respiration im- 
parts to air a poisonous quality similar to that 
which extinguishes candles and destroys life 
in mines and wells. '' The doctor," he records, 
*' breathed gently through a tube into a deep 
glass mug, so as to impregnate all the air. in 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 39 

the mug with this quality. He then put a 
lighted bougie (candle) into the mug, and upon 
touching the air therein the flame was in- 
stantly extinguished ; by frequently repeat- 
ing this operation, the bougie gradually pre- 
served its light longer in the mug, so as in a 
short time to retain it to the bottom of it, the 
air having totally lost the bad quality it had 
contracted from the breath blown into it." Upon 
being consulted with regard to the better ventil- 
ation of the House of Commons, he advised that 
openings should be made i;iear the ceiling, com- 
municating with flues running parallel with the 
chimneys and close enough to them to be kept 
warm by their heat. These flues, he recom- 
mended, should begin in the cellar, where the 
air was cool, and the flues being warmed by the 
hot air of the chimneys, Avould cause an up- 
ward current of air strong enough to expel the 
vitiated air in the upper part of the house. 
Franklin's letters at this time are full of the 
importance of ventilation. Unquestionably, he 
was among the first who called attention to 
the folly of excluding fresh air from hospitals 
and sick-rooms, particularly those of fever pa- 
tients. As Mr. Parton expresses it, he cleared 
the pure air of heaven from calumnious imputa- 
tion and threw open the windows of mankind. 

Some inventions of Franklin's have not met 
with the approval of posterity. For instance, he 
seems to have had no more success with a re- 
formed spelling of his own devising than laborers 
in the same field who came after him. He used 



40 INVENTOBS 

to say that they alone spelt Avell who spelt ill, 
since the so-called bad speller used the letters 
according to their real value. The illiterate 
girl who wrote of her bo was more correct, he 
thought, than the young lady who would blush 
to omit a superfluous vowel. What was the use 
of the final letter in muff, and why take the 
trouble to write tough when ttif would do as 
well ? Had he lived to see Dr. Webster's 
Dictionary, the lexicographer would have found 
in him an ardent champion. His reformed al- 
phabet and spelling is an interesting curiosity, 
but hardly more. Some letters of our alpha- 
bet he omitted, only to add new ones. He also 
changed their order, making o the first letter and 
in the last. In this connection it may be well to 
say that Franklin was perhaps the first and fore- 
most American champion of the movement, 
now so powerful, looking to the displacement of 
Latin and Greek as the foundations of education. 
At the very close of his life, in 1789, he issued 
his famous protest against the study of dead lan- 
guages. He is reported to have said one even- 
ing, when talking about this matter: ''When 
the custom of wearing broad cuffs with buttons 
first began, there was a reason for it; the cuffs 
might be brought down over the hands and thus 
guard them from wet and cold. But gloves came 
into use, and the broad cuffs were unnecessary ; 
yet the custom was still retained. So likewise 
with cocked hats. The wide brim, when let 
down, afforded a protection from the rain and 
the sun. Umbrellas were introduced, yet fash- 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 41 

ion prevailed to keep cocked hats in vogue, 
although they were rather cumbersome than 
useful. Thus with the Latin language. When 
nearly all the books of Europe were written 
in that language, the study of it was essential in 
every system of education ; but it is now scarcely 
needed, except as an accomplishment, since it 
has everywhere given place, as a vehicle of 
thought and knowledge, to some one of the 
modern tongues." 

With all his love of the practical, Franklin was 
not deficient in a rather delicate wit. I have al- 
ready had occasion to quotfe at the beginning of 
this paper his disclaimer of the honors conferred 
upon him by Turgot's famous Latin line. In- 
stances of this dry humor may be found all 
through Sparks's exhaustive biography. I re- 
member one in particular. The merchants of 
Philadelphia, being at one time desirous to es- 
tablish an assembly for dancing, they drew up 
some rules, among which was one '' that no me- 
chanic or mechanic's wife or daughter should be 
admitted on any terms." This rule being sub- 
mitted to Franklin, he remarked that " it excluded 
God Almighty, for he was the greatest mechanic 
in the universe." 

Benjamin Franklin's services to the cause of 
invention by no means ended with his own in- 
ventions. One of his greatest services was the 
part he took in the foundation of the American 
Philosophical Society, whose object was to bring 
into correspondence with a central association 
in Philadelphia all scientists, philosophers, and 



42 INVENTORS 

inventors on this continent and in Europe. 
Franklin's share in the foundation of this soci- 
ety, which has proved of such vast use, seems 
to have been largely overlooked by his biogra- 
phers. Mr. Parton, having mentioned that Frank- 
lin founded the society in accordance with his 
proposal of 1743, adds : " The society was formed 
and continued in existence for some years. 
Nevertheless, its success was neither great nor 
permanent, for at that day the circle of men ca- 
pable of taking much interest in science was too 
limited for the proper support of such an organi- 
zation." The recent historian of the society, 
Dr. Robert M. Patterson, agrees, however, with 
Sparks in tracing the origin of the Philosophi- 
cal Society, which grew into prominence about 
1767, back to Franklin's proposal of 1743. After 
describing the Junto, or Leather Apron Society, 
formed among Franklin's acquaintance, a sort of 
debating club of eleven young men. Sparks says : 
" Forty years after its establishment it became 
the basis of the American Philosophical Society, 
of which Franklin was the first president, and 
the published transactions of which have con- 
tributed to the advancement of science and the 
diffusion of valuable knowledge in the United 
States." In his first proposal Franklin gave a 
list of the subjects that were to engage the at- 
tention of these New World philosophers. It in- 
cluded investigations in botany ; in medicine ; in 
mineralogy and mining; in chemistry; in me- 
chanics ; in arts, trades, and manufactures ; in 
geography and topography ; in agriculture ; and, 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 



43 



lest something should have been forgotten, he 
adds that the association should "give its atten- 
tion to all philosophical experiments that let 
light into the nature of things, tend to increase 
the power of man over matter and multiply the 




conveniences or pleasures of life." The duties 
of the secretary of the society were laid down 
and were arduous, including much foreign corre- 
spondence, in addition to the correcting, abstract- 
ing, and methodizing of such papers as required 
it. This office Franklin took upon himself. 

While he lived the proceedings of the society 
scarcely ever failed of a useful end. Unlike so 



44 INVENTORS 

many original and inventive geniuses, his emi- 
nent common sense was as marked as his origi- 
nality. In the language of his most recent bi- 
ographer, John Bach McMaster, '' whatever 
he has said on domestic economy or thrift is 
sound and striking. No other writer has left so 
many just and original observations on success 
in life. No other writer has pointed out so 
clearly the Avay to obtain the greatest amount of 
comfort out of life. What Solomon did for the 
spiritual man, that did Franklin for the earthly 
man. The book of Proverbs is a collection of 
receipts for laying up treasure in heaven. ' Poor 
Richard' is a collection of receipts for laying up 
treasure on earth." 



II. 

ROBERT FULTON. 

Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steam- 
boat, or at least the first man to apply the power 
of the steam-engine to the propulsion of boats in a 
practical and effective manner, was born in Little 
Britain, Lancaster County, Pa., 1765, of respect- 
able but poor parents. His father was a native of 
Kilkenny, Ireland, and his mother came of a fairly 
well-to-do Irish family, settled in Pennsylvania. 
He was the third of five children. As a child he 
received the rudiments of a common education. 
His vocation showed itself in his earliest years. 
All his hours of recreation were passed in shops 
and in drawing. At the time he was seventeen 
he had become so much of an artist as to make 
money by portrait and landscape painting in 
Philadelphia, where he remained until he was 
twenty-one. After this he went to Washington 
County and there purchased a little farm on 
which he settled his mother, his father having 
died when he was three years old. He returned 
to Philadelphia, but on his way visited the Warm 
Springs of Pennsylvania, where he met with 
some gentlemen who were so much pleased with 
his painting that they advised him to go to Eng- 
land, where they told him he would meet with 




Robert Fulton. 



ROBERT FULTON 47 

West who had then attained great celebrity. 
Fulton took this advice, and his reception by 
West, always kindly toward Americans, was 
such as he had been led to expect. The dis- 
tinguished painter was so well pleased with him 
that he took him into his house, where he con- 
tinued to live for several years. For some time 
Fulton made painting his chief employment, 
spending two years in Devonshire, near Exeter, 
where he made many influential acquaintances, 
among others the Duke of Bridgewater, famous 
for his canals, and Lord Stanhope, a nobleman 
noted for his love of science and his attachment 
to the mechanic arts. With Lord Stanhope, Ful- 
ton held a correspondence for a long time upon 
subjects in which they were interested. 

In 1793, Fulton was engaged in a project to 
improve inland navigation. Even at that early 
day it appeared that he had conceived the idea 
of propelling vessels by steam, and he speaks in 
his letters of its practicability. In 1794 he ob- 
tained from the British Government a patent for 
improvements in canal locks, and his pursuits at 
this time appear to have been in this direction. 
In his preface to a description of his Nautilus, or 
*' plunging " boat, a species of submarine boat, 
he says that he had resided eighteen months in 
Birmingham where he acquired much of his 
knowledge of mechanics. In later years, when 
in Paris, Fulton sent a large collection of his 
manuscripts to this country. Unfortunately, the 
vessel in which they were sent was wrecked, 
and, while the case was recovered, only a few 



48 



INVENTORS 



fragments of the manuscripts could be used. It 
is owing to this misfortune that we have so few 
records of Fulton's work at this time. 

We know, however, that in 1794 he submitted 
to the British Society for the Promotion of Arts 
and Commerce an improvement of his invention 
for sawing marble, for which he received the 







Birthplace of Robert Fulton* 

thanks of the society and an honorary medal. 
He invented also, it is thought, about this time, a 
machine for spinning flax and another for mak- 
ing ropes, for both of which he obtained patents 
from the British Government. A mechanical 
contrivance for scooping out earth to form chan- 
nels for canals or aqueducts, which is said to have 

* This illustration and tlie four following are from Knox's " Life 
of Fulton," reproduced by permission of the publishers, G. P. Put- 
nam's Sons. 



ROBERT FULTON 49 

been much used in England, was also his inven- 
tion. The subject of canals appears to have 
chiefly engaged his attention during these years 
of the end of the century. He called himself a 
civil engineer, and under this title published his 
work on canals, and, in 1795, many essays on the 
same subject in one of the London journals. He 
recommended small canals and boats of little 
burden in a treatise on " Improvement of Canal 
Navigation," and inclined planes instead of locks, 
as a means of transporting canal boats from one 
level to another. His plans were strongly rec- 
ommended by the British Board of Agricult- 
ure. Throughout his course as civil engineer 
his talent for drawing was of great advantage to 
him, and the plates annexed to his works are ad- 
mirable examples of such work. He seems to 
have neglected his painting till a short time be- 
fore his death, when he took up the brush again 
to paint some portraits of his family. During 
his residence in England he sent copies of his 
works to distinguished men in this country, 
setting forth the advantages to be derived from 
communication by canals. 

Having obtained a patent for mill improve- 
ments from the British Government, he went to 
France with the intention of introducing his in- 
vention there ; but, not meeting with much en- 
couragement, he devoted his time to other 
matters. Political economy had also some at- 
traction for him, and he wrote a book to show 
that internal improvements would have a good 
effect on the happiness of a nation. He not only 
4 



60 INVENTORS 

wished to see a free and speedy communication 
between the different parts of a large country, 
but universal free trade between all countrieSo 
He' thought that it would take ages to establish 
the freedom of the seas by the common consent 
of nations, and believed in destroying ships of 
war, so as to put it out of the power of any na- 
tion to control ocean trade. In 1797 he became 
acquainted with Joel Barlow, the well-known 
American, then residing in Paris, in whose family 
he lived for seven years, during which time he 
learned French and something of German, and 
studied mathematics and chemistry. In the same 
year he made an experiment with Mr. Barlow on 
the Seine with a machine he had constructed to 
give packages of gunpowder a progressive mo- 
tion under water and then to explode at a given 
point. These experiments appear to have been 
the first in the line of his submarine boats, and 
are unquestionably the germ of all subsequent 
inventions in the direction of torpedo warfare. 

Want of money to carry out his designs in- 
duced him to apply to the French Directory, 
who at first gave him reason to expect their aid, 
but finally rejected his plan. Fulton, however, 
was not to be discouraged, but went on Avith his 
inventions, and having made a handsome model 
of his machine for destroying ships, a commis- 
sion was appointed to examine his plans, but 
they also rejected them. He offered his idea to 
the British Government, still again without suc- 
cess, although a committee was appointed to ex- 
amine his models. The French Government 



nOBERT FULTON 61 

being changed, and Bonaparte having come to 
the head of it, Fulton presented an address to 
him. A commission was appointed, and some as- 
sistance given which enabled him to put some of 
his plans into practice. In the spring of 1801 
he went to Brest to make experiments with the 
plunging boat that he had constructed in the win. 
ter. This, as he says, had many imperfections, 
to be expected in a first machine, and had been 
injured by rust, as parts which should have been 
of copper or brass were made of iron. 

Notwithstanding these disadvantages, he en- 
gaged in a course of experiments which required 
no less courage than perseverance. From a re- 
port of his proceedings to the committee ap- 
pointed by the French Government we learn that 
in July, 1 801, he embarked with three compan- 
ions on board of this boat, in the harbor of 
Brest, and descended to the depth of twenty-five 
feet, remaining below the surface an hour, in 
utter darkness, as the candles were found to con- 
sume too much of the vital air. He placed two 
men at the engine, which was intended to give 
her motion, and one at the helm, while he, with 
a barometer before him, kept her balanced be- 
tween the upper and lower waters. He could 
turn her round while under the water, and found 
that in seven minutes he had gone about a third 
of a mile. During that summer Fulton de- 
scended under water with a store of air com- 
pressed into a copper globe, whereby he was 
enabled to remain under water four hours and 
twenty minutes. The success of these experi- 



52 INVENTORS 

ments determined him to try the effect of his 
invention on the English war-ships, then daily 
near the harbor of Brest — France and England 
being then at war. He made his own bombs. 
For experimental purposes a small vessel was 
anchored in the harbor, and with a bomb con- 
taining about twenty pounds of powder, he ap- 
proached within about two hundred yards, 
struck the vessel, and blew her into atoms. A 
column of water and fragments were sent nearly 
one hundred feet into the air. This experiment 
was made in the presence of the prefect of the 
department and a multitude of spectators. Dur- 
ing the summer of 1801 Fulton tried to use his 
bombs against some of the English vessels, but 
was not successful in getting within range. The 
French Government refused to give him further 
encouragement. 

The English had some information concerning 
the attempts that their enemies were making, 
and the anxiet}^ expressed induced the British 
Minister to communicate with Fulton and try to 
secure to England his services. In this he was 
successful, and Fulton went to London, where he 
arrived in 1804, and met Pitt and Lord Melville. 
When Mr. Pitt first saw a drawing of a torpedo 
with a sketch of the mode of applying it, and 
understood what would be the effect of the ex- 
plosion, he said that if it were introduced into 
practice it could not fail to annihilate all navies. 

But from the subsequent conduct of the Brit- 
ish ministry it is supposed that they never really 
intended to give Fulton a fair opportunity to try 



ROBERT FULTON 



53 



the effect of his submarine engines. Their ob- 
ject may have been to prevent these devices 
getting into the hands of an enemy. Several 
experiments were made, and some of them were 
failures, but on October 15, 1805, h^ blew up a 
strong -built Danish brig of two hundred tons 
burden, which had been provided for the experi- 
ment and which was anchored near the residence 






-^'■-^r.r^j^ffC 



"■^.iZA^C-^iC ^-h- 









1 Ajijiyjuiiil'liiui;..!.' 



Fulton Blowing Up a Danish Brig. 



of Pitt. The torpedo used on this occasion con- 
tained one hundred and seventy pounds of pow- 
der. In fifteen minutes from the time of starting 
the machinery the explosion took place. It lifted 
the brig almost entire and broke her completely 
in two ; in one minute nothing was to be seen of 
her but floating fragments. Notwithstanding 
the complete success of this experiment, the 
British ministry seems to have had nothing to do 
with Fulton. The inventor was rather discour- 



64 INVENTORS 

aged at this lack of appreciation and, after some 
further experiments, he sailed for New York in 
December, 1806. 

In this country Fulton devoted himself at once 
to his projects of submarine warfare and steam 
navigation. So far from being discouraged by 
his failure to impress Europe with the impor- 
tance of his torpedoes, his confidence was un- 
shaken, because he saw that his failures were to 
be attributed to trivial errors that could easily 
be corrected. He induced our Government to 
give him the means of making further experi- 
ments, and invited the magistracy of New York 
and a number of citizens to Governor's Island 
where were the torpedoes and the machinery 
with which his experiments were to be made. 
In July, 1807, he blew up, in the harbor of New 
York, a large brig prepared for that purpose. 
He also devised at this time a number of station- 
ary torpedoes, really casks of powder, with trig- 
gers that might be caught by the keel of any 
passing vessel. In March, 18 10, $5,000 were 
granted by Congress for further experiments 
in submarine explosions. The sloop of war. 
Argus, was prepared for defence against the 
torpedoes after Fulton had explained his mode 
of attack. This defence was so complete that 
Fulton found it impracticable to do anythins»* 
with his torpedoes. Some experiments were 
made, however, with a gun-harpoon and cable 
cutter, and after several attempts a fourteen-incb 
cable was cut off several feet below the surface 
of the water. 



ROBERT FtlLTON 55 

Fulton was, during all these experiments, 
much pressed for money, and apparently was 
making no headway toward the use of his sub- 
marine engines in a profitable way. It was in de- 
spair of getting our Government to make an in- 
vestment in this direction that he finally turned 
to the problem of navigation by steam. He 
had the valuable co-operation in his new work 
of Chancellor Livingston, of New Jersey, who, 
while devoting much of his own time and means 
to the advancement of science, was fond of fos- 
tering the discoveries of others. He had very 
clear conceptions of what would be the great 
advantages of steamboats on the navigable rivers 
of the United States. He had already, when in 
Paris, applied himself at great expense to con- 
structing vessels and machinery for that kind of 
navigation. As early as 1798 he believed that 
he had accomplished his object, and represent- 
ed to the Legislature of New York that he was 
possessed of a mode of applying the steam-en- 
gine to a boat on new and advantageous prin- 
ciples ; but that he was deterred from carrying 
it into effect by the uncertainty of expensive ex- 
periments, unless he could be assured of an ex- 
clusive advantage should it be successful. The 
Legislature in March, 1798, passed an act vesting 
him with the exclusive right and privilege of 
navigating all kinds of boats which might be 
propelled by the force of fire or steam on all 
the waters within the territory of New York for 
the term of twenty years, upon condition that he 
should within a twelve-month build such a boat, 



56 



INVENTORS 



whose progress should not be less than four 
miles an hour. 

Livingston, as soon as the act had passed, built 
a boat of about thirty tons burden, to be pro- 






'm\if^^^W^-&^^mM& 







John Fitch's Steamboat at Philadelphia. 

pelled by steam. Soon after he entered into a 
contract with Fulton, by which it Avas agreed 
that a patent should be taken out in the United 
States in Fulton's name. Thus began the prep- 
arations for the first practical steamboat. All 
the experiments were paid for by Chancellor Liv- 
ingston, but the work was Fulton's. In 1802, in 
Paris, he began a course of calculations upon the 
resistance of water, upon the most advantageous 
form of the body to be moved, and upon the 
different means of propelling vessels which had 
been previously attempted. After a variety of 
calculations he rejected the proposed plan of 



ROBERT FULTON 



57 



using paddles or oars, such as those already 
used by Fitch ; likewise that of ducks' feet, 
which open as they are pushed out and shut as 
they are drawn in ; also that of forcing water 
out of the stern of the vessel. He retained two 
methods as worthy of experiment, namely, end- 
less chains with paddle-boards upon them, and 
the paddle-wheel. The latter was found to be 
the most promising, and was finally adopted 
after a number of trials with models on a little 
river which runs through the village of Plom- 
bieres, to which he had retired in the spring of 
1802, to pursue his experiments without inter- 
ruption. 

It was now determined to build an experimen- 




Fulton's First Experiment with Paddle-wheels. 

tal boat, which was completed in the spring of 
1803 ; but when Fulton was on the point of mak- 
ing an experiment with her, an accident hap- 
pened to the boat, the woodwork not having 



58 INVENTORS 

been framed strongly enough to bear the weight 
of the machinery and the agitation of the river. 
The accident did the machinery very little in- 
jury ; but they were obliged to build the boat al- 
most entirely anew. She was completed in July ; 
her length was sixty-six feet and she was eight 
feet wide. Early in August, Fulton addressed a 
letter to the French National Institute, inviting 
the members to witness a trial of his boat, which 
was made before the members, and in the pres- 
ence of a great multitude of Parisians. The 
experiment was entirely satisfactory to Fulton, 
though the boat did not move altogether with 
as much speed as he expected. But he imputed 
her moving so slowly to the extremely defective 
machinery, and to imperfections which were to 
be expected in the first experiment with so com- 
plicated a machine ; the defects were such as 
might be easily remedied. 

Such entire confidence did he acquire from 
this experiment that immediately afterward 
he wrote to Messrs. Boulton & Watt, of Bir- 
mingham, England, ordering certain parts of a 
steam-engine to be made for him, and sent to 
America. He did not disclose to them for 
what purpose the engine was intended, but his 
directions were such as would produce the 
parts of an engine that might be put together 
within a compass suited for a boat. Mr. Liv- 
ingston had written to his friends in this coun- 
try, and through their assistance an act was 
passed by the Legislature of the State of New 
York, on April 5, 1803, by which the rights 



ROBERT FULTON 59 

and exclusive privileges of navigating all the 
waters of that State, by vessels propelled by 
fire or steam, granted to Livingston by the Act 
of 1798, as already mentioned, were extended to 
Livingston and Fulton, for the term of twenty 
years from the date of the new act. By this 
law the time of producing proof of the prac- 
ticability of propelling by steam a boat of 
twenty tons capacity, at the rate of four miles 
an hour, with and against the ordinary current 
of the Hudson, was extended two years, and 
by a subsequent law, the time was extended to 
1807. 

Very soon after Fulton's arrival in New York 
he began building his first American boat. 
While she was constructing, he found that her 
cost would greatly exceed his calculations. He 
endeavored to lessen the pressure on his own 
finances by offering one-third of the rights for a 
proportionate contribution to the expense. It 
was generally known that he made this offer, 
but no one was then willing to afford aid to his 
enterprise. 

In the spring of 1807, Fulton's first American 
boat was launched from the shipyard of Charles 
Brown, on the East River. The engine from 
England was put on board, and in August she 
was completed, and was moved by her ma- 
chinery from her birthplace to the Jersey shore. 
Livingston and Fulton had invited many of 
their friends to witness the first trial, among 
them Dr. Mitchell and Dr. M'Neven, to whom 
we are indebted for some account of what 



60 INVENTORS 

passed on this occasion. Nothing could exceed 
the surprise and admiration of all who wit- 
nessed the experiment. The minds of the most 
incredulous were changed in a few minutes. 
Before the boat had gone a quarter of a mile, 
the greatest unbeliever must have been con- 
verted. The man who, while he looked on the 
expensive machine, thanked his stars that he 
had more wisdom than to waste his money on 
such idle schemes, changed his mind as the boat 
moved from the wharf and gained speed, and 
his complacent expression gradually stiffened 
into one of wonder. 

This boat, which was called the Clermont, 
soon after made a trip to Albany. Fulton gives 
the following account of this voyage in a letter 
to his friend, Mr. Barlow : 

" My steamboat voyage to Albany and back, 
has turned out rather more favorable than I had 
calculated. The distance from New York to 
Albany is one hundred and fifty miles ; I ran 
it up in thirty-two hours, and down in thirty. 
I had a light breeze against me the whole way, 
both going and coming, and the voyage has been 
performed wholly by the power of the steam- 
engine. I overtook many sloops and schooners 
beating to windward, and parted with them as if 
they had been at anchor. The power of propel- 
ling boats by steam is now fully proved. The 
morning I left New York there were not, perhaps, 
thirty persons in the city who believed that the 
boat would even move one mile an hour, or be of 
the least utility ; and while we were putting off 




M'- 



4a 



/ 




^ *.!/iV) 



hi 



I'lfJ'i 



ROBERT FULTON 61 

from the wharf, which was crowded with specta- 
tors, I heard a number of sarcastic remarks. 
This is the way in which ignorant men compli- 
ment what they call philosophers and projectors. 
Having employed much time, money, and zeal, in 
accomplishing this work, it gives me, as it will 
you, great pleasure to see it fully answer my ex- 
pectations. It will give a cheap and quick con- 
veyance to the merchandise on the Mississippi, 
Missouri, and other great rivers, which are now 
laying open their treasures to the enterprise 
of our countrymen ; and although the prospect 
of personal emolument has been some induce- 
ment to me, yet I feel infinitely more pleasure in 
reflecting on the immense advantage that my 
country will derive from the invention." 

Soon after this successful voyage, the Hudson 
boat was advertised and established as a regular 
passage-boat between New York and Albany. 
She, however, in the course of the season, met 
with several accidents, from the hostility of 
those engaged in the ordinary navigation of the 
river, and from defects in her machinery, the 
greatest of which was having her water-wheel 
shafts of cast-iron, which was insufficient to sus- 
tain the great power applied to them. The 
wheels also were hung without any support for 
the outward end of the shaft, which is now 
supplied by what are called the wheel-guards. 

At the session of 1808 a law was passed to 
prolong the time of the exclusive right to thirty 
years ; it also declared combinations to destroy 
the boat, or wilful attempts to injure her, public 



62 INVENTORS 

offences, punishable by fine and imprisonment. 
Notwithstanding her misfortunes, the boat con- 
tinued to run as a packet, always loaded with 
passengers, for the remainder of the summer. 
In the course of the ensuing winter she was 
enlarged, and in the spring of 1808 she again 
began running as a packet-boat, and continued it 
through the season. Several other boats were 
soon built for the Hudson River, and also for 
steamboat companies formed in different parts 
of the United States. On February 11, 1809, Ful- 
ton took out a patent for his inventions in navi- 
gation by steam, and on February 9, 181 1, he ob- 
tained a second patent for some improvements in 
his boats and machinery. 

About the year 18 12 two steam ferry-boats 
were built under the direction of Fulton for 
crossing the Hudson River, and one of the same 
description for the East River. These boats 
were what are called twin-boats, each of them 
being two complete hulls united by a deck or 
bridge. They were sharp at both ends, and 
moved equally well with either end foremost, so 
that they crossed and recrossed without losing 
any time by turning about. He contrived, with 
great ingenuity, floating docks for the reception 
of these boats, and a means by which they were 
brought to them without a shock. These boats, 
were the first of a fleet which has since carried 
hundreds of millions of passengers to and from 
New York. 

From the time the first boat was put in motion 
till the death of Fulton, the art of navigating by 



ROBERT FULTON 63 

steam advanced rapidly to that perfection of 
which he believed it capable ; the boats per- 
formed each successive trip with increased 
speed, and every year improvements were made. 
The last boat built by Fulton was invariably the 
best, the most convenient, and the swiftest. 

At the beginning of 1814 a number of the citi- 
zens of New York, alarmed at the exposed situa- 
tion of their harbor, had assembled with a view 
to consider whether some measures might not be 
taken to aid the Government in its protection. 
This assembly had some knowledge of Fulton's 
plans for submarine attack, and knew that he 
contemplated other means of defence. It de- 
puted a number of gentlemen to act for it, and 
these were called the Coast and Harbor Com- 
mittee. Fulton exhibited to this committee the 
model and plans for a vessel of war, to be pro- 
pelled by steam, capable of carrying a strong 
battery, with furnaces for red-hot shot, and 
which, he represented, would move at the rate 
of four miles an hour. The confidence of the 
committee in this design was confirmed by the 
opinions of many of our most distinguished 
naval commanders, which he had obtained in 
writing, and exhibited to the committee. They 
pointed out many advantages which a steam 
vessel of war would possess over those Avith sails 
only. 

The National Legislature passed a law in 
March, 18 14, authorizing the President of the 
United States to cause to be built, equipped, and 
employed one or more floating batteries for the 



64 INVENTORS 

defence of the waters of the United States. A 
sub-committee of five gentlemen was appointed 
to superintend the building of the proposed 
vessel, and Fulton, whose spirit animated the 
whole enterprise, was appointed the engineer. 
In June, 1814, the keel of this novel and mighty 
engine was laid, and in October she was launched 
from the New York yard of Adam and Noah 
Brown. The scene exhibited on this occasion 
was magnificent. It happened on one of our 
bright autumnal days. Multitudes of spectators 
crowded the surrounding shores. The river and 
bay were filled with vessels of war, dressed in 
all their colors in compliment to the occasion. 
By May, 181 5, her engine was put on board, and 
she was so far completed as to afford an oppor- 
tunity of trying her machinery. On the 4th of 
July, in the same year, the steam-frigate made 
a passage to the ocean and back, a distance of 
fifty-three miles, in eight hours and twenty 
minutes, by the mere force of steam. In Sep- 
tember she made another passage to the sea, 
and having at this time the weight of her whole 
armament on board, she went at the rate of five 
and a half miles an hour, upon an average, 
with and against the tide. The superintending 
committee gave in their report a full description 
of the Fulton the First, the honored name this 
vessel bore. 

The last work in which the active and in- 
genious mind of Fulton was engaged was a proj- 
ect for the modification of his submarine boat. 
He presented a model of this vessel to the Gov- 



ROBERT FULTON 



65 



eniment, by which it was approved ; and under 
Federal authority he began building one; but 
before the hull was entirely finished his country 



,^ 



-^ 





The " Demologos," or " Fulton -the First.'' 
The first steam vessel-of-war in the world. 

had to lament his death, and the mechanics he 
employed were incapable of proceeding without 
him. 

During the whole time that Fulton had thus 
been devoting his talents to the service of his 
5 



66 INVENTORS 

country, he had been harassed by lawsuits and 
controversies with those who were violating his 
patent rights, or intruding upon his exclusive 
grants. The State of New Jersey had passed a 
law which operated against Fulton, without be- 
ing of much advantage to those interested in its 
passage, inasmuch as the laws of New York pre- 
vented any but Fulton's boats to approach the 
city of New York. Its only operation was to stop 
a boat owned in New York, which had been for 
several years running to New Brunswick, under 
a license from Messrs. Livingston and Fulton. 
A bold attempt was therefore made to induce 
the Legislature of the State of New York to re- 
peal the laws which they had passed for the pro- 
tection of their exclusive grant to Livingston 
and Fulton. The committee reported that such 
repeal might be passed consistently with good 
faith, honor, and justice! This report being 
made to the House, it was prevailed upon to be 
less precipitate than the committee had been. It 
gave time, which the committee would not do, 
for Fulton to be sent for from New York. The 
Assembly and Senate in joint session examined 
witnesses, and heard him and the petitioner by 
counsel. The result was that the Legislature 
refused to repeal the prior law, or to pass any 
act on the subject. The Legislature of the State 
of New Jersey also repealed their law, which 
left Fulton in the full enjoyment of his rights. 
This enjoyment was of very short duration; for 
on returning from Trenton, after this last trial, 
he was exposed on the Hudson, which was very 



ROBERT FULTON 67 

full of ice, for several hours. He had not a con- 
stitution to encounter such exposure, and upon 
his return found himself much indisposed. He 
had at that time great anxiety about the steam- 
frigate, and, after confining himself to the house 
for a few days, went to give his superintendence 
to the workmen employed about her. Forget- 
ting his ill-health in the interest he took in what 
was doing on the frigate, he remained too long 
exposed on a bad day to the weather. He soon 
felt the effects of this imprudence. His indis- 
position returned upon him with such violence 
as to confine him to his bed. His illness in- 
creased, and on February 24, 181 5, it ended his 
life. 

It was not known that Fulton's illness was 
dangerous till a very short time before his death. 
Means were immediately taken to testify, pub- 
licly, the universal regret at his loss, and respect 
for his memory. The corporation of the city of 
New York, the different literary institutions and 
other societies, assembled and passed resolutions 
expressing their estimation of his Avorth, and re- 
gret at his loss. They also resolved to attend 
his funeral, and that the members should wear 
badges of mourning for a certain time. As soon 
as the Legislature, which was then in session at 
Albany, heard of the death of Fulton, they ex- 
pressed their participation in the general senti- 
ment by resolving that the members of both 
Houses should wear mourning for some weeks. 

In 1806 Fulton married Harriet Livingston, a 
daughter of Walter Livingston, a relative of his 



i\S 



INVENTORS 



associate, Chancellor Livingston. He left four 
children ; one son, Robert Barlow Fulton, and 
three daughters. Fulton was in person consid- 
erably above medium height ; his face showed 
great intelligence. Natural refinement and long 
intercourse with the most polished society of 
Europe and America had given him grace and 
elegance of manner. 




The Cleimont. 



in. 

ELI WHITNEY. . 

In 1784 an American vessel arrived at Liver- 
pool having on board, as part of her cargo, eight 
bags of cotton, which were seized by the Custom- 
House under the conviction that they could not 
be the growth of America. The whole amount 
of cotton arriving at Liverpool from America 
during the two following years was less than 
one hundred and twenty bags. When Eli Whit- 
ney, the inventor of the cotton-gin, applied for 
his first patent in 1793, the total export of cotton 
from the United States was less than ten thou- 
sand bales. Fifty years later, the growth of this 
industry, owing almost wholly to Whitney's 
gin, had increased to millions of bales, and by 
i860, the export amounted to four million bales. 

According to the estimate of Judge Johnson, 
given in the most famous decision affecting the 
cotton-gin, the debts of the South were paid off 
by its aid, its capital was increased, and its lands 
trebled in value. This famous device, the gift 
of a young Northerner to the South, was re- 
warded by thirty years of ingratitude, relieved 
only by a few gleams of sunshine in the way of 
justice, serving to make the injustice all the 
more conspicuous. Whitney added hundreds 
of millions to the wealth of the United States. 




Eli Whitney. 



ELI WHITNEY 71 

His personal reward was countless lawsuits and 
endless vexation of body and spirit. No more 
conspicuous example can be cited of steady pa- 
tience and sweet-tempered perseverance. 

Eli Whitney was born in Westborough, Wor- 
cester County, Mass., December 8, 1765. His 
parents belonged to that respectable class of so- 
ciety who, by honest farming and kindred indus- 
tries, managed to provide well for the rising 
family — the class from whom have arisen most of 
those who in New England have attained to emi- 
nence and usefulness. The indications of his 
mechanical genius were noted at an early age. 
Of his passion for mechanics, his sister gives 
the following account : 

" Our father had a workshop and sometimes 
made wheels of different kinds, and chairs. He 
had a variety of tools and a lathe for turning 
chair-posts. This gave my brother an oppor- 
tunity of learning the use of tools when very 
young. He lost no time, but as soon as he could 
handle tools he was always making something 
in the shop, and seemed to prefer that to work 
on the farm. After the death of our mother, 
when our father had been absent from home two 
or three days, on his return he inquired of the 
housekeeper what the boys had been doing. She 
told him what the elders had done. ' But what 
has Eli been doing ? ' said he. She replied he 
has been making a fiddle. ' Ah ! ' added he, de- 
spondently, ' I fear Eli will have to take his por- 
tion in fiddles.' " 



72 INVENTORS 

He was at this time about twelve years old. 
The sister adds that his fiddle was finished 
throughout like a common violin and made 
pretty good music. It was examined by many 
persons, and all pronounced it to be a model 
piece of work for such a boy. From this time 
he was always employed to repair violins, and 
did many nice jobs that were executed to the 
entire satisfaction and even to the astonishment 
of his customers. His father's watch being the 
greatest piece of mechanism that had yet pre- 
sented itself to his observation, he was extremely 
desirous of examining its interior construction, 
but was not permitted to do so. One Sunday 
morning, observing that his father was going to 
church and would leave at home the wonderful 
little machine, he feigned illness as an apology for 
not going. As soon as the family were out of 
sight, he flew to the room where the watch hung 
and took it down. He was so delighted with its 
motion that he took it to pieces before he thought 
of the consequences of his rash deed ; for his 
father was a stern parent, and punishment would 
have been the reward of his idle curiosity, had the 
mischief been detected. He, however, put the 
works so neatly together that his father never 
discovered his audacity until he himself told him 
many years afterward. 

When Eli was thirteen years old his father 
married a second time. His stepmother, among 
her articles of furniture, had a handsome set of 
table-knives that she valued very highly. 

One day Eli said : " I could make as good ones 



ELI WHITNEY 73 

if I had tools, and I could make the tools if I 
had common tools to begin with ; " his mother 
laughed at him. But it so happened soon after- 
ward that one of the knives was broken, and he 
made one exactly like it in every respect, except 
the stamp of the blade. When he was fifteen or 
sixteen years of age, he suggested to his father 
an enterprise which clearly showed his capacity 
for important work. The time being the Revo- 
lutionary War, nails were in great demand and at 
high prices. They were made chiefly by hand. 
Whitney proposed to his father to get him a few 
tools and allow him to set up the manufacture 
of nails. His father consented, and the work 
was begun. By extraordinary diligence he 
found time to make tools for his own use and to 
put in knife-blades, repair farm machinery, and 
perform other little jobs beyond the skill of the 
country workman. At this occupation the en- 
terprising boy worked alone with great success 
and with large profit to his father for two win- 
ters, going on with the ordinary work of the 
farm during the summer. He devised a plan for 
enlarging the business, and managed to obtain 
help from a fellow-laborer whom he picked up 
when on a short journey of forty miles, in the 
course of which he tells us that he called at every 
workshop on the way and gleaned all the infor- 
mation as to tools and methods that he could. 

At the close of the war the business of making 
nails Avas no longer profitable ; but the fashion 
prevailing among the ladies of fastening on their 
bonnets with long pins having appeared, he con- 



74 INVENTORS 

trived to make these pins with such skill that he 
nearly monopolized the business, though he de- 
voted to it only such leisure as he could redeem 
from the occupations of the farm. He also made 
excellent walking-canes. At the age of nineteen 
Whitney conceived the idea of getting a liberal 
education ; and partly by the results of his me- 
chanical industries, and partly by teaching the 
village school, he was enabled so far to surmount 
the difficulties in his way as to prepare himself 
for the Freshman Class in Yale College, which he 
entered in 1789. At college his mechanical pro- 
pensity frequently showed itself. He success- 
fully undertook, on one occasion, the repairing 
of some of the philosophical apparatus. Soon 
after taking his degree, in the autumn of 1792, 
he engaged with a Georgia family as private 
teacher, and through his engagement he made 
the acquaintance of a certain General Greene, of 
Savannah, who took a deep interest in him, and 
with whom he began the study of law. While 
living with the Greenes he noticed an embroid- 
ery-frame used by Mrs. Greene, and about 
which she complained, observing that it tore the 
delicate threads of her work. Young Whitney, 
eager to oblige his hostess, went to work and 
speedily produced a frame on an entirely new 
plan. The family were much delighted with it, 
and considered it a wonderful piece of inge- 
nuity. 

Not lonof afterward the Greenes were visited 
by a party of gentlemen, chiefly officers who had 
served under the general in the Revolutionary 



ELI WHITNEY 75 

War. The conversation turned on the state of 
agriculture. It was remarked that unfortunately 
there was no means of cleaning the staple of 
the green cotton-seed, which might otherwise be 
profitably raised on land unsuitable for rice. But 
until someone devised a machine which would 
clean the cotton, it was vain to think of raising 




Whitney Watching the Cotton-Gin. 

it for market. Separating one pound of the 
clean staple from the seed Avas a day's work for 
a woman. The time usually devoted to the pick- 
ing of cotton was the evening, after the labor of 
the field was over. Then the slaves — men, wom- 
en, and children — were collected in circles, with 
one in the middle whose duty it was to rouse 
the dosing and quicken the indolent. While 
the company were engaged in this conversation, 
Mrs. Greene said : '' Gentlemen, apply to my 



76 INVENTORS 

young friend here, Mr. Whitney ; he can make 
anything." And she showed them the frame and 
several other articles he had made. He mod- 
estly disclaimed all pretensions to mechanical 
genius, and replied that he had never seen cot- 
ton-seed. 

Nevertheless, he immediately began upon the 
task of inventing and constructing the machine 
on which his fame depends. A Mr. Phineas 
Miller, a neighbor, to whom he communicated 
his design, warmly encouraged him, and gave 
him a room in his house wherein to carry on his 
operations. Here he began work with the dis- 
advantage of being obliged to manufacture his 
own tools and draw his own wire — an article not 
to be found in Savannah. Mr. Miller and Mrs. 
Greene were the only persons who knew any- 
thing of his occupation. Near the close of the 
winter, 1793, the machine was so far completed 
as to leave no doubt of its success. The person 
who contributed most to the success of the un- 
dertaking, after the inventor, was his friend. 
Miller, a native of Connecticut and a graduate of 
Yale. Like Whitney, he had come to Georgia 
as a private teacher, and after the death of Gen- 
eral Greene he married the widow. He was a 
lawyer by profession, with a turn for mechanics. 
He had some money and proposed to Whitney 
to become his partner, he to be at the whole 
expense of manufacturing the invention until 
it should be patented. If the machine should 
succeed, they agreed that the profits and ad- 
vantages should be divided between them. A 



ELI WHITNEY 77 

legal paper covering this agreement and estab- 
lishing the firm of Miller & Whitney, bears the 
date of May 27, 1793. 

An invention so important to the agricultural 
interests of the country could not long remain a 
secret. The knowledge of it swept through the 
State, and so great was the excitement on the 
subject that crowds of persons came from all 
parts to see the machine ; it was not deemed safe 
to gratify curiosity until the patent-right should 
be secured. But so determined were some of 
these people that neither law nor justice could 
restrain them ; they broke into the building by 
night and carried off the machine. In this way 
the public became possessed of the invention, 
and before Whitney could complete his model 
and secure his patent, a number of machines, 
patterned after his, were in successful operation. 

The principle of the Whitney cotton-gin and 
all other gins following its features is so well 
known as to make it scarcely worth while to de- 
scribe it here. The different parts are two cylin- 
ders of different diameters, mounted in a strong 
wooden frame, one cylinder bearing a number 
of circular saws fitted into grooves cut into the 
cylinder. The other hollow cylinder is mounted 
with brushes, the tips of whose bristles touch 
the saw-teeth. The cotton is put into a hopper, 
where it is met by the sharp teeth of the saws, 
torn from the seed, and carried to a point where 
the brushes sweep it off into a convenient recep- 
tacle. The seeds are too large to pass between 
the bars through which the saws protrude. This 



78 



INVENTORS 



is the principle of the first machine, but many 
improvements have been made since Whitney's 
day. Nevertheless, by means of the cotton-gin, 
even in its earliest shape, one man, with the aid 
of two-horse power, could clean five thousand 
pounds of cotton in a day. 




The Cotton-Gin. 
(From the original model.) 

As soon as the partnership of Miller & Whit- 
ney was formed, the latter went to Connecticut 
to perfect the machine, obtain the patent, and 
manufacture for Georgia as many machines as 
he thought would supply the demand. At once 
there began between Whitney in Connecticut 
and Miller in Georgia a correspondence relative 



ELI WHITNEY 79 

to the cotton-gin, which gives a complete history 
ol the extraordinary efforts made by the two 
partners and the disappointments that fell to 
their lot. The very first letter, written three 
days after Whitney left, announces that en- 
croachments upon their rights had already be- 
gun. " It will be necessary," says Miller, '' to 
have a considerable number of gins in readiness 
to send out as soon as the patent is obtained in 
order to satisfy the absolute demands and make 
people's heads easy on the su^bject; for I am in- 
formed of two other claimants for the honor of 
the invention of the cotton-gin in addition to 
those we knew before." At the close of the year 
1793 Whitney was to return to Georgia with 
his gins, where his partner had made arrange- 
ments for beginning business. The importunity 
of Miller's letters, written during this period, 
urging him to come on, show how eager the 
Georgia planters were to enter the new field of 
enterprise that the genius of Whitney had 
opened to them. Nor did they at first contem- 
plate stealing the invention. But the minds of 
even the more honorable among the planters 
were afterward deluded by various artifices set 
on foot by designing rivals of Whitney with a 
view to robbing him of his rights. One of the 
greatest difficulties experienced by the partners 
was the extreme scarcity of money, which em- 
barrassed them so much as to make it impos- 
sible to construct machines fast enough. 

In April Whitney returned to Georgia. 
Large crops of cotton had been planted, the 



80 INVENTORS 

profits of which were to depend almost wholly 
on the success of the gin. A formidable com- 
petitor, the roller-gin, had also appeared, which 
destroyed the seed by means of rollers, crushing 
them between revolving cylinders instead of dis- 
engaging them by means of teeth. The frag- 
ments of seeds which remained in the cotton 
made it much inferior to Whitney's gin, and it 
was slower in operation. A still more danger- 
ous rival appeared in 1795, under the name of 
the saw-gin. It was really Whitney's invention, 
except that the teeth were cut in circular rings 
of iron instead of being made of wire, as in the 
earlier forms of the Whitney gin. The use of 
such teeth had occurred to Whitney, as he es- 
tablished by legal proof. They would have been 
of no use except in connection with other parts 
of his machine, and it was a palpable attempt to 
invade his patent right. It was chiefly in refer- 
ence to this device that the endless lawsuits that 
wore the life out of the partners were afterward 
held. 

In March, 1795, after two years of struggle, 
during which no progress seems to have been 
made, although the value of the gin was proved, 
Whitney went to New York, where he was de- 
tained three weeks by fever. Upon reaching 
New Haven he discovered that his shop, with 
all his machines and papers, had been consumed 
by fire. Thus he was suddenly reduced to bank- 
ruptcy and was in debt $4,000 without any means 
of payment. He was not, however, one to sink 
under such trials. Miller showed the same buoy- 



ELI WHITNEY 81 

ant spirit, and the following extract of a letter of 
his to Whitney may be a useful lesson to young 
men in trouble : 

" I think we ought to meet such events with 
equanimity. We have been pursuing a valuable 
object by honorable means, and I trust that all 
our measures have been such as reason and virt- 
ue must justify. It has pleased Providence to 
postpone the attainment of this object. In the 
midst of the reflections which your story has sug- 
gested, and with feelings keenly awake to the 
heavy, the extensive injury we have sustained, I 
feel a secret joy and satisfaction that you pos- 
sess a mind in this respect similar to my own — 
that you are not disheartened, that you do not 
relinquish the pursuit, and that you will perse- 
vere, and endeavor, at all events, to attain the 
main object. This is exactly consonant to my 
own determinations. I will devote all my time, 
all my thoughts, all my exertions, and all the 
money I can earn or borrow to encompass and 
complete the business we have undertaken ; and if 
fortune should, by any future disaster, deny us the 
boon we ask, we will at least deserve it. It shall 
never be said that w^e have lost an object which 
a little perseverance could have attained. I think, 
indeed, it will be very extraordinary if two young 
men in the prime of life, with some share of inge- 
nuity, and with a little knowledge of the world, a 
great deal of industry, and a considerable com- 
mand of property, should not be able to sustain 
such a stroke of misfortune as this, heavy as it is." 
6 



82 INVENTORS 

Miller winds up by suggesting to Whitney 
that perhaps he can get help in New Haven by 
offering twelve per cent, a year for money with 
which to build a new shop, and the inventor 
seems to have had some success in reorganizing 
his affairs, even under such desperate conditions. 
Word came at the same time from England that 
manufacturers had condemned the cotton cleaned 
by their machines on the ground that the staple 
was greatly injured. This threatened a death- 
blow to their hopes. At the time, 1796, they al- 
ready had thirty gins at different places in 
Georgia, some worked by horses and oxen and 
some by water. Some of these were still stand- 
ing a few years ago. The following extract of 
a letter by Whitney will show the state of his 
mind and affairs : 

" The extreme embarrassments Avhich have 
been for a long time accumulating upon me are 
now become so great that it will be impossible 
for me to struggle against them many days 
longer. It has required my utmost exertions 
to exist without making the least progress in 
our business. I have labored hard against the 
strong current of disappointment which has been 
threatening to carry us down the cataract, but I 
have labored with a shattered oar and struggled 
in vain, unless some speedy relief is obtained. 
Life is but short at best, and six or 
seven years out of the midst of it is to him who 
makes it an immense sacrifice. My most unre- 
mitted attention has been devoted to our busi- 



ELI WIIITNET S3 

ness. I have sacrificed to it other objects from 
which, before this time, I might certainly have 
gained $20,000 or $30,000. My whole prospects 
have been embarked in it, with the expectation 
that I should before this time have realized some- 
thing from it." 

The cotton of Whitney's gin was, however, 
sought by merchants in preference to other 
kinds, and respectable manufacturers testified in 
his favor. Had it not been for the extensive and 
shameful violations of their patent -right, the 
partners might yet have succeeded ; but these 
encroachments had become so extensive as al- 
most to destroy its value. The issue of the first 
important trial that they were able to obtain on 
the merits of the gin is announced in the follow- 
ing letter from Miller to Whitney, dated May 
II, 1797: 

'' The event of the first patent suit, after all 
our exertions made in such a variety of ways, 
has gone against us. The preposterous custom 
of trying civil causes of this intricacy and mag- 
nitude by a common jury, together with the im- 
perfection of the patent law, frustrated all our 
views, and disappointed expectations which had 
become very sanguine. The tide of popular 
opinion was running in our favor, the judge was 
well disposed toward us, and many decided 
friends were with us, who adhered firmly to our 
cause and interests. The judge gave a charge 
to the jury pointedly in our favor; after which 
the defendant himself told an acquaintance of 



84 INVENTORS 

his that he would give two thousand dollars 
to be free from the verdict, and yet the jury 
gave it against us, after a consultation of about 
an hour. And having made the verdict general, 
no appeal would lie. 

'' On Monday morning, when the verdict was 
rendered, we applied for a new trial, but the 
judge refused it to us on the ground that the jury 
might have made up their opinion on the defect 
of the law, which makes an aggression consist of 
making, devising, and using or selling ; whereas 
we could only charge the defendant with using. 

" Thus, after four years of assiduous labor, 
fatigue, and difficulty, are we again set afloat by 
a new and most unexpected obstacle. Our hopes 
of success are now removed to a period still 
more distant than before, while our expenses are 
realized beyond all controversy." 

Great efforts were made to obtain trial in a 
second suit in Savannah the following May, and 
a number of witnesses were collected from vari- 
ous parts of the country, all to no purpose, for 
the judge failed to appear, and in the meantime, 
owing to the failure of the first suit, encroach- 
ments on the patent -right had multiplied pro- 
digiously. 

In April, 1799, nearly a year later, and two 
years after their first legal rebuff, Miller writes 
as follows : 

" The prospect of making anything by gin- 
ning in this State is at an end. Surreptitious gins 
are erected in every part of the country, and the 



ELI WHITNEY 85 

jurymen at Augusta have come to an under- 
standing among themselves that they will never 
give a cause in our favor, let the merits of the 
case be as they may." 

The company would now have gladly relin- 
quished the plan of making their own machines, 
and confined their operations to the sale of patent- 
rights ; but few would buy the right to a machine 
which could be used with impunity without pur- 
chase, and those few usually gave notes instead 
of cash, which they afterward, to a great extent, 
avoided paying, either by obtaining a verdict 
from the juries declaring them void, or by con- 
triving to postpone the collection till they were 
barred by the Statute of Limitations, a period of 
only four years. The agent of Miller & Whit- 
ney, who was despatched on a collecting tour 
through the State of Georgia, informed his em- 
ployers that such obstacles were thrown in his 
way by one or the other of these causes that he 
Avas unable to collect money enough to pay his 
expenses. It was suggested that an application 
to the Legislature of South Carolina to purchase 
the patent-right for that State would be success- 
ful. Whitney accordingly repaired to Colum- 
bia, and the business was brought before the 
Legislature in December, 1801. An extract from 
a letter by Whitney at this time shows the nat- 
ure of the contract thus made : 

" I have been at this place a little more than 
two Aveeks attendingf the Lesfislature. A few 
hours previous to their adjournment they voted 



86 INVENTORS 

to purchase for the State of South Carolina my 
patent-right to the machine for cleaning cotton 
at $50,000, of which sum $20,000 is to be paid 
in hand, and the remainder in three annual pay- 
ments of $10,000 each." He adds: ''We get 
but a song for it in comparison with the worth 
of the thing, but it is securing something. It 
will enable Miller & Whitney to pay their debts 
and divide something between them." 

In December, 1802, Whitney negotiated the 
sale of his patent-right with the State of North 
Carolina. The Legislature laid a tax of 2s. 6d. 
upon every saw (some of the gins had forty saws) 
employed in ginning cotton, to be continued for 
live years ; and after deducting the expenses 
of collection the returns were faithfully passed 
over to the patentee. This compensation was 
regarded by Whitney as more liberal than that 
received from any other source. About the 
same time Mr. Goodrich, the agent of the com- 
pany, entered into a similar negotiation with 
Tennessee, which State had by this time be- 
gun to realize the importance of the invention. 
The Legislature passed a law laying a tax of 37-^ 
cents per annum on every saw used, for the 
period of four years. Thus far the prospects 
were growing favorable to the patentees, when 
the Legislature of South Carolina unexpectedly 
annulled the contract which they had made, sus- 
pended further payment of the balance, and sued 
for the refunding of what had been already 
paid. When Whitney first heard of the trans- 



ELI WHITNEY 87 

actions of the South Carolina Legislature, he 
was at Raleigh, where he had just completed 
a negotiation with the Legislature of North 
Carolina. In a letter written to Miller at this 
time, he remarks : 

"■ I am, for my own part, more vexed than 
alarmed by their extraordinary proceedings. I 
think it behooves us to be very cautious and 
very circumspect in our measures, and even in 
our remarks with regard to it.^ Be cautious what 
you say or publish till we meet our enemies in 
a court of justice, where, if they have any sen- 
sibility left, we will make them very much 
ashamed of their childish conduct." 

But that Whitney felt keenly the severities 
afterward practised against him is evident from 
the tenor of the remonstrance which he pre- 
sented to the Legislature : 

'' The subscriber avers that he has manifested 
no other than a disposition to fulfil all the stipu- 
lations entered into with the State of South 
Carolina with punctuality and good faith ; and 
he begs leave to observe further, that to have in- 
dustriously, laboriously, and exclusively devoted 
many years of the prime of his life to the inven- 
tion and the improvement of a machine from 
which the citizens of South Carolina have already 
realized immense profits, which is worth to them 
millions, and from which their prosperity must 
continue to derive the most important profits, and 
in return to be treated as a felon, a swindler, and 



88 INVENTORS 

a villain, has stung him to the very soul. And 
when he considers that this cruel persecution is 
inflicted by the very persons who are enjoying 
these great benefits, and expressly for the pur- 
pose of preventing his ever deriving the least 
advantage from his own labors, the acuteness of 
his feelings is altogether inexpressible." 

Doubts, it seems, had arisen in the public mind 
as to the validity of the patent. Great exer- 
tions had been made in Georgia, where, it will 
be remembered, hostilities were first declared 
against him, to show that his title to the inven- 
tion was unsound, and that ^' somebody " in 
Switzerland had conceived it before him ; and 
that the improved form of the machine with 
saws, instead of wire teeth, did not come within 
the patent, having been introduced by one 
Hodgin Holmes. The popular voice, stimulated 
by the most sordid methods, was now raised 
against Whitney throughout all the cotton States. 
Tennessee followed the example of South Caro- 
lina, annulling the contract made with him. And 
the attempt was made in North Carolina. But a 
committee of the Legislature, to whom it was re- 
ferred, reported in Whitney's favor, declaring 
" that the contract ought to be fulfilled Avith 
punctuality and good faith," which resolution 
was adopted by both Houses. There were also 
high-minded men in South Carolina who were 
indignant at the dishonorable measures adopted 
by their Legislature of 1803 ; their sentiments 
impressed the community so favorably with re- 



ELI WHITNEY 89 

gard to Whitney that, at the session of 1804, the 
Legislature not only rescinded what the previ- 
ous one had done, but signified their respect for 
Whitney by marked commendations. 

Miller died on December 7, 1803. In the 
earlier stages of the enterprise he had indulged 
high hopes of a great fortune ; perpetual disap- 
pointments appear to have attended him through 
life. Whitney was now left alone to contend 
single-handed against the difficulties which had, 
for a series of years, almost sbroken down the 
spirits of the partners. The light, moreover, 
which seemed to be breaking, proved but the 
twilight of prosperity. The favorable issue of 
Whitney's affairs in South Carolina, and the gen- 
erous receipts he obtained from his contract 
with North Carolina, relieved him, however, 
from the embarrassments under which he had 
so long groaned, and made him, in some degree, 
independent. Still, no small portion of the funds 
thus collected in North and South Carolina was 
expended in carrying on trials and endless law- 
suits in Georgia. 

Finally, in the United States Court, held in 
Georgia, December, 1807, Whitney's patent ob- 
tained a most important decision in its favor 
against a trespasser named Fort. It was on this 
trial that Judge Johnson gave a most celebrated 
decision in the following words : 

" To support the originality of the invention, 
the complainants have produced a variety of 
depositions of witnesses, examined under com- 



90 INVENTORS 

mission, whose examinations expressly prove the 
origin, progress, and completion of the machine 
of Whitney, one of the copartners. Persons who 
were made privy to his first discovery testify to 
the several experiments which he made in their 
presence before he ventured to expose his in- 
vention to the scrutiny of the public eye. But it 
is not necessary to resort to such testimony to 
maintain this point. The jealousy of the artist 
to maintain that reputation which his ingenuity 
has justly acquired, has urged him to unneces- 
sary pains on this subject. There are circum- 
stances in the knowledge of all mankind which 
prove the originality of this invention more satis- 
factorily to the mind than the direct testimony 
of a host of witnesses. The cotton-plant fur- 
nished clothing to mankind before the age of 
Herodotus. The green seed is a species much 
more productive than the black, and by nature 
adapted to a much greater variety of climate, 
but by reason of the strong adherence of the 
fibre to the seed, without the aid of some more 
powerful machine for separating it than any for- 
merly known among us, the cultivation of it 
would never have been made an object. The 
machine of which Mr. Whitney claims the inven- 
tion so facilitates the preparation of. this species 
for use that the cultivation of it has suddenly 
become an object of infinitely greater national 
importance than that of the other species ever 
can be. Is it, then, to be imagined that if this 
machine had been before discovered, the use of 
it would ever have been lost, or could have been 



ELI WHITNEY 91 

confined to any tract or country left unexplored 
by commercial enterprise ? But it is unnecessary 
to remark further upon this subject. A number 
of years have elapsed since Mr. Whitney took 
out his patent, and no one has produced or pre- 
tended to prove the existence of a machine of 
similar construction or use. 

" With regard to the utility of this discovery 
the court would deem it a waste of time to dwell 
long upon this topic. Is there a man who hears 
us who has not experienced its utility? The 
whole interior of the Southern States was lan- 
guishing and its inhabitants emigrating for want 
of some object to engage their attention and em- 
ploy their industry, when the invention of this ma- 
chine at once opened views to them which set the 
whole country in active motion. From child- 
hood to age it has presented to us a lucrative 
employment. Our debts have been paid off, our 
capitals have increased, and our lands trebled 
themselves in value. We cannot express the 
weight of the obligation which the country owes 
to this invention. The extent of it cannot now 
be seen. Some faint presentiment may be 
formed from the reflection that cotton is rapid- 
ly supplanting wool, flax, silk, and even furs in 
manufactures, and may one day profitably sup- 
ply the use of specie in our East India trade. 
Our sister States also participate in the benefits 
of this invention, for besides affording the raw 
material for their manufacturers, the bulkiness 
and quantity of the article affords a valuable 
employment for their shipping." 



92 INVENTORS 

The influence of this decision, however, availed 
Whitney very little, for the term of his patent 
had nearly expired. During Miller's life more 
than sixty suits had been instituted in Georgia, 
and but a single decision on the merits of the 
claim was obtained. In prosecution of his 
troublesome business, Whitney had made six 
different journeys to Georgia, several of which 
were accomplished by land at a time when the 
difficulties of such journeys were exceedingly 
great. A gentleman who was well acquainted 
with Whitney's affairs in the South, and some- 
times acted as his legal adviser, says that in all 
his experience in the thorny profession of the 
law he never saw a case of such perseverance 
under prosecution. He adds : '' Nor do I be- 
lieve that I ever knew any other man who would 
have met them with equal coolness and firmness, 
or who would finally have obtained even the 
partial success which he did. He always called 
on me in New York on his way South when go- 
inof to attend his endless trials and to meet the 
mischievous contrivances of men who seemed 
inexhaustible in their resources of evil. Even 
now, after thirty years, my head aches to rec- 
ollect his narratives of new trials, fresh dis- 
appointments, and -accumulated wrongs." 

In 1798 Whitney had become deeply impressed 
with the uncertainty of all his hopes founded 
upon the cotton-gin, and began to think seriously 
of devoting himself to some business in which 
his superior ingenuity, seconded by uncom- 
mon industry, would conduct him by a slow but 



ELI WHITNEY 93 

Sure road to a competent fortune. It may be 
considered indicative of solid judgment and a 
well-balanced mind that he did not, as is so fre- 
quently the case with men of inventive genius, 
become so poisoned with the hopes of vast 
wealth as to be disqualified for making a reason- 
able provision for life by the sober earnings 
of private industry. The enterprise which he 
selected in accordance with these views was 
the manufacture of arms for the United States. 
Through Oliver Wolcott, then Secretary of the 
Treasury, he obtained a contract for the manu- 
facture of 10,000 stand of arms, 4,000 of which 
were to be delivered before the last of Septem- 
ber of the ensuing year, 1799. Whitney pur- 
chased for his Avorks a site called East Rock, 
near New Haven, now known as Whitneyville, 
and justly admired for the romantic beauty of 
its scenery. A water-fall offered the necessary 
power for the machinery. 

Here he began operations with great zeal. His 
machinery was yet to be built, his material col- 
lected, and even his workmen to be taught, and 
that in a business with which he was imperfectly 
acquainted. 

A severe winter retarded his operations and 
rendered him incompetent to fulfil the contract. 
Only 500 instead of 4,000 stands were delivered 
the first year, and eight years instead of two 
were found necessary for completing the whole. 
During the eight years Whitney was occupied 
in performing this work, he applied himself to 
business with the most exemplary diligence, ris- 



94 INVENTORS 

ing every morning as soon as it was day, and at 
night setting everything in order in all parts of 
the establishment. His genius impressed itself 
on every part of the factory, extending even 
to the most common tools, most of which re- 
ceived some peculiar modification which im- 
proved them in accuracy or efficiency. His ma- 
' chines for making the several parts of the musket 
were made to operate with the greatest possible 
degree of uniformity and precision. The object 
at which he aimed, and which he fully accom- 
plished, was to make the same parts of different 
guns, as the locks, for instance, as much like each 
other as the successive impressions of a copper- 
plate engraving, and it has generally been con- 
sidered that Whitney greatly improved the way 
of manufacturing arms and laid his country 
under permanent obligations by augmenting 
our facilities for national defence. In 1812 he 
made a contract to manufacture for the United 
States 15,000 stand of arms, and in the mean- 
time a similar contract with the State of New 
York. Several other persons made contracts 
with the Government at about the same time and 
attempted the manufacture of muskets. The 
result of their efforts was a complete failure, 
and in some instances they expended a consider- 
able fortune in addition to the amount received 
for their work. In 1822 Calhoun, then Secretary 
of War, admitted in a conversation with Whit- 
ney that the Government was saving $25,000 
a year at the public armories alone by his im- 
provements, and it should be remembered that 



ELI WHITNEY 95 

the utility of Whitney's labors during this part of 
his life was not limited to this particular business. 
In i8i2 Whitney made application to Congress 
for the renewal of his patent for the cotton-gin. 
In his memorial he presented the history of the 
struggles he had been forced to make in defence 
of his rights, observing that he had been unable 
to obtain any decision on the merits of his claim 
until thirteen years of his patent had expired. 
He states also that his invention had been a 
source of opulence to thousauds of the citizens 
of the United States ; that as a labor-saving 
machine it would enable one man to perform the 
work of a thousand men, and that it furnished to 
the whole family of mankind, at a very cheap 
rate, the most essential material for their cloth- 
ing. Although so great advantages had already 
been experienced, and the prospect of future 
benefits was so promising, still, many of those 
whose interest had been most promoted and the 
value of whose property had been most enhanced 
by this invention, had obstinately persisted in 
refusing to make any compensation to the in- 
ventor. From the State in which he had first 
made, and where he had first introduced his 
machine, and which had derived the most signal 
benefits — Georgia — he had received nothing ; 
and from no State had he received the amount 
of half a cent per pound on the cotton cleaned 
with his machines in, one year. Estimating the 
value of the labor of one man at twenty cents a 
day, the whole amount which had been received 
by him for his invention was not equal to the value 



96 INVENTORS 

of the labor saved in one hour by his machines 
then in use in the United States. He continues : 

" It is objected that if the patentee succeeds in 
procuring the renewal of his patent he will be 
too rich. There is no probability that the pat- 
entee, if the term of his patent were extended 
for twenty years, would ever obtain for his in- 
vention one-half as much as many an individual 
will gain by the use of it. Up to the present 
time the whole amount of what he had acquired 
from this source, after deducting his expenses, 
does not exceed one-half the sum which a single 
individual has gained by the use of the machine 
in one year. It is true that considerable sums 
have been obtained from some of the States 
where the machine is used, but no small portion 
of these sums has been expended in prosecuting 
his claim in a State where nothing has been ob- 
tained, and where his machine has been used to 
the greatest advantage." 

Notwithstanding these cogent arguments, the 
application was rejected by the courts. Some 
liberal-minded and enlightened men from the 
cotton districts favored the petition, but a major- 
ity of the members from that part of the Union 
were warmly opposed to granting it. In a let- 
ter to Robert Fulton, Whitney says : 

'' The difficulties with which I have to contend 
have originated, principally, in the want of a dis- 
position in mankind to do justice. My invention 
was new and distinct from every other ; it stood 
alone. It was not interwoven with anything 



ELI WHITNEY 97 

before known ; and it can seldom happen that an 
invention or improvement is so strongly marked 
and can be so clearly and specifically identified ; 
and I have always believed that I should have 
no difficulty in causing my right to be respected, 
if it had been less valuable, and been used only 
by a small portion of the community. But the 
use of this machine being immensely profitable 
to almost every planter in the cotton districts, 
all were interested in trespassing upon the patent- 
right, and each kept the other in countenance. 
Demagogues made themselves popular by mis- 
representations and unfounded clamors, both 
against the right and against the law made for 
its protection. Hence there arose associations 
and combinations to oppose both. At one time, 
but few men in Georgia dared to come into court 
and testify to the most simple facts within their 
knowledge, relative to the lise of the machine. In 
one instance I had great difficulty in proving that 
the machine had been used in Georgia, although 
at the same moment there were three separate 
sets of this machinery in motion within fifty yards 
of the building in which the court sat, and all so 
near that the rattling of the wheels was distinct- 
ly heard on the steps of the court-house." 

Such perseverance, patience, and uncommon 
skill were not, however, to go wholly unre- 
warded. Whitney's factory of arms in New 
Haven made money for him, and the Southern 
States were not all guilty of ingratitude. More- 
over, in his private life he was extremely fortu- 
7 



98 INVENTORS 

nate. In January, 1817, he married Henrietta 
Edwards, the youngest daughter of Judge Pier- 
pont Edwards, of Connecticut. A son and three 
daughters contributed to the sunshine of the 
close of a somewhat stormy and eventful life. 
His last years were his happiest. He found 
prosperity and honor in New Haven, where he 
died on January 8, 1825, after a tedious illness. 

In person Whitney was of more than usual 
height, with much dignity of manner and an 
open, pleasant face. Among his particular 
friends no man was more esteemed. Some of 
the earliest of his intimate associates were among 
the latest. His sense of honor was high, and his 
feeling of resentment and indignation under in- 
justice correspondingly strong. He could, how- 
ever, be cool when his opponents were hot, and 
his strong sense of the injuries he had suffered 
did not impair the natural serenity of his temper. 
The value of his famous invention has so steadily 
grown that its money importance to this country 
can scarcely be estimated in figures. His tomb 
in New Haven is after a model of that of Scipio, 
at Rome, and bears the following inscription : 

ELI WHITNEY, 
The Inventor of the Cotton-Gin. 
of useful science and arts, the efficient patron 

and improver. 
in the social relations of life, a model of excel- 
LENCE. 

while private affection weeps at his tomb, his 

country honors his memory. 

Born Dec 8, 1765. Died Jan. 8, 1825. 



IV. 

ELIAS HOWE. 

In looking" over the history of great inventions 
it is remarkable how uniformly those discoveries 
that helped mankind most have been derided, 
abused, and opposed by the very classes which 
in the end they were destined to bless. Nearly 
every great invention has had literally to be 
forced into popular acceptance. The bowmen 
of the Middle Ages resisted the introduction of 
the musket ; the sedan-chair carriers would not 
allow hackney carriages to be used ; the stage- 
coach lines attempted by all possible devices to 
block the advance of the railway. When, in 
1707, Dr. Papin showed his first rude conception 
of a steamboat, it was seized by the boatmen, who 
feared that it would deprive them of a living. 
Kay was mobbed in Lancashire when he tried to 
introduce his fly-shuttle ; Hargreaves had his 
spinning-frame destroyed b}^ a Blackburn mob ; 
Crampton had to hide his spinning-mule in a 
lumber-room for fear of a similar fate ; Arkwright, 
the inventor of the spinning - frame, was de- 
nounced as the enemy of the working- classes 
and his mill destroyed ; Jacquard narrowly es- 
caped being thrown into the river Rhone by a 
crowd of furious weavers when his new loom 




Elias Howe. 



ELIAS HOWE 101 

was first put into operation ; Cartwright had to 
abandon his power-loom for years because of 
the bitter animosity of the weavers toward it. 
Riots were organized in Nottingham against 
the use of the stocking-loom. 

It is not therefore surprising that the greatest 
labor-saving machine of domestic life, the sew- 
ing-machine, should have been received with any- 
thing but thanks. Howe was abused, ridiculed, 
and denounced as the enemy of man, and espe- 
cially of poor sewing-women, the very class whose 
toil he has done so much to lighten. Curses in- 
stead of blessings were showered upon him dur- 
ing the first years that followed the successful 
working of his wonderful machine. Fortunately 
for the inventor, the age of persecution had al- 
most passed, and Howe lived to receive the re- 
wards he so fully deserved. 

Elias Howe, Jr., Avas born in Spencer, Mass., in 
1 8 19. His father was a farmer and miller, and 
the eight children of the family, as was common 
with all poor people of the time, were early 
taught to do light work of one kind or another. 
When Elias was six years old he was set with his 
brothers and sisters at sticking wire teeth through 
the leather straps used for cotton-cards. When 
older he helped his father in the mill, and in sum- 
mer picked up a little book knowledge at the dis- 
trict school. As a boy he was frail in constitu- 
tion, and he was slightly lame. When eleven 
years old he attempted farm labor for a neigh- 
bor, but was not strong enough for it and re- 
turned to his father'^ mill, whero he remained 



102 INVENTORS 

until he was sixteen. It was here that he first 
began to like machinery. A friend who had 
visited Lowell gave him such an account of that 
bustling city and its big mills that young Howe, 
becoming dissatisfied, obtained his father's con- 
sent to leave, and found employment in one of 
the Lowell cotton-mills. The financial crash of 
1837 stopped the looms, and Howe obtained a 
place in a Cambridge machine-shop in which his 
cousin, Nathaniel P. Banks, afterward Governor 
of Massachusetts, also worked. Howe's first job 
happened to be upon a new hemp-carding ma- 
chine of Treadwell. 

At the age of twenty-one Howe married and 
moved to Boston, finding employment in the ma- 
chine-shop of Ari Davis, He is described as be- 
ing a capital workman, more full of resources 
than of plodding industry, however, and rather 
apt to spend more time in suggesting a better 
way of doing a job than in following instructions. 
With such a disposition, and inasmuch as his sug- 
gestions were not considered of value, he had 
rather a hard time of it. Three children were 
born to the young couple. As Howe's earnings 
were slight and his health none of the best, his 
wife tried to add to the family income, and at 
evening, when Howe lay exhausted upon the bed 
after his day's work, the young mother patiently 
sewed. Her toil was to some purpose. With 
his natural bent for mechanics, Howe could not 
be a silent witness of this incessant and poorly 
paid labor without becoming interested in afford- 
ing aid. Moreover, he was constantly employed 



ELI AS HOWE . 103 

upon new spinning and weaving machines for do- 
ing work that for thousands of years had been 
done painfully and slowly by hand. The possi- 
bility of sewing by machinery had often been 
spoken of before that day, but the problem 
seemed to present insuperable difficulties. 

Elias Howx had, as we know, peculiar fitness for 
such work. He had" seen much of inventors and 
inventions, and knew something of the dangers 
and disappointments in store for him. In the in- 
tervals between important jobs at the shop he 
nursed the idea of a se\ying-machine, keeping 
his own counsel. In his first rude attempt it ap- 
peared to him that machine-sewing could only 
be accomplished with very coarse thread or 
string ; fine thread would not stand the strain. 
For his first machine he made a needle pointed 
at both ends, with an eye in the middle ; it was 
arranged to work up and down, carrying the 
thread through at each thrust. It was only 
after more than a year's work upon this device 
that he decided it would not do. This first 
attempt was a sort of imitation of sewing by 
hand, the machine following more or less the 
movements of the hand. Finally, after repeated 
failures, it became plain to him that something 
radically different was needed, and that there 
must be another stitch, and perhaps another 
needle or half a dozen needles, in such a machine. 
He then conceived the idea of using two threads, 
and making the stitch by means of a shuttle and 
a curved needle with the eye near the point. 
This was the real solution of the problem. In 



104 INVENTORS 

October, 1844, he made a rough model of his 
first sewing-machine, all of wood and wire, and 
found that it would actually sew. 

In one of the earliest accounts of the inven- 
tion it is thus described : ^' He used a needle 
and a shuttle of novel construction, and com- 
bined them with holding surfaces, feed mechan- 
ism, and other devices as they had never before 
been brought together in one machine. . . . 
One of the principal features of Mr. Howe's in- 
vention is the combination of a grooved needle 
having an eye near its point, and vibrating in the 
direction of its length, with a side-pointed shuttle 
for effecting a locked stitch, and forming with 
the threads, one on each side of the cloth, a firm 
and lasting seam not easily ripped." 

Meanw^hile Howe had given up work as a 
machinist and had moved to his father's house 
in Cambridge, where the elder Howe had a 
shop for the cutting of palm-leaf used in the 
manufacture of hats. Here Elias and his little 
family lived, and in the garret the inventor put 
up a lathe upon which he made the parts of his 
sewing-machine. To provide for his family he 
did such odd jobs as he could find ; but it was 
hard work to get bread, to say nothing of butter, 
and to make matters worse his father lost his shop 
by fire. Elias knew that his sewing-machine 
would work, but he had no money wherewith to 
buy the materials for a machine of steel and iron, 
and without such a machine he could not hope to 
interest capital in it. He needed at least $500 with 
which to prove the value of his great invention. 



ELIA8 HOWE 105 

Fortune threw in his way a coal and wood 
dealer of Cambridge, named Fisher, who had 
some money. Fisher liked the invention and 
agreed to board Howe and his family, to give 
Howe a workshop in his house, and to advance 
the $500 necessary for the construction of a first 
machine. In return he was to become a half 
owner in the patent should Howe succeed in ob- 
taining one. In December, 1844, Howe accord- 
ingly moved into Fisher's house, and here the 
new marvel was brought into the world. All 
that winter Howe worked over his device in 
Fisher's garret, making many changes as unfore- 
seen difficulties arose. He worked all day, and 
sometimes nearly all night, succeeding by April, 
1845, ^^ sewing a seam four yards long with his 
machine. By the middle of May the machine 
was completed, and in July Howe sewed with it 
the seams of two woollen suits, one for himself 
and the other for Fisher ; the sewing was so well 
done that it promised to outlast the cloth. For 
many years this machine was exhibited in a shop 
in New York. It showed how completely, at 
really the first attempt, Howe had mastered the 
enormous difficulties in his way. Its chief feat- 
ures are those upon which were founded all the 
sewing-machines that followed. 

Late in 1845 Howe obtained his first patent 
and began to take means to introduce his sew- 
ing-machine to the public. He first offered it to 
the tailors of Boston, who admitted its useful- 
ness, but assured him that it would never be 
adopted, as it would ruin their trade. Other 



106 INVENTORS 

efforts were equally unsuccessful ; the more per- 
fectly the machine did its work, the more obsti- 
nate and determined seemed to be the resistance 
to it. Everyone admitted and praised the inge- 
nuity of the invention, but no one would invest a 
dollar in it. Fisher became disheartened and 
withdrew from the partnership, and Howe and 
his family moved back into his father's house. 

For a time the poor inventor abandoned his 
machine and obtained a place as engineer on a 
railway, driving a locomotive, until his health 
entirely broke down. Forced to turn again to 
his beloved sewing-machine for want of anything 
better to do, Howe decided to send his brother 
Amasa to England with a machine. Amasa 
reached London in October, 1846, and met a cer- 
tain William Thomas, to whom he explained the 
invention. Thomas was much impressed with 
its possibilities and offered $1,250 for the ma- 
chine and also to engage Elias Howe at $15 a 
week if he would enter his business of umbrella 
and corset maker. This was at least a livelihood 
to the latter, and he sailed for England, where 
for the next eight months he worked for Thomas, 
whom he found an uncommonly hard master. 
He was indeed so harshly treated that, although 
his wife and three children had arrived in Lon- 
don, he threw up his situation. For a time his 
condition was a piteous one. He was in a strange 
country, without friends or money. For days at 
a time the little family were without more than 
crusts to live upon. 

Believing that he could struggle along better 



ELI AS HOWE 10? 

alone, Howe sent his family home with the first 
few dollars that he could obtain from the other 
side and remained in London. There were cer- 
tain things which caused him to hope for better 
times ahead. But such hopes were delusive, it 
seems, and after some months of hardship he 
followed his family to this country, pawning his 
model and his patent papers in order to obtain 
the necessary money for the passage. As he 
landed in New York with less than a dollar in his 
pocket, he received news that hi3 wife was dy- 
ing of consumption in Cambridge. He had no 
money for travelling by rail, and he was too 
feeble to attempt the journey on foot. It took 
him some days to obtain the money for his fare 
to Boston, but he arrived in time to be present 
at the death-bed of his wife. Before he could 
recover from this blow he had news that the 
ship by which he had sent home the few house- 
hold goods still remaining to him had gone to 
the bottom. 

This was poor Howe's darkest hour. Others 
had seen the value of the sewing-machine, and 
during his absence in England several imitations 
of it had been made and sold to great advantage 
by unscrupulous mechanics, who had paid no at- 
tention to the rights of the inventor. Such ma- 
chines were already spoken of as wonders by 
the newspapers, and were beginning to be used 
in several industries. Howe's patent was so 
strong that it was not difficult to find money to 
defend it, once the practical value of the inven- 
tion had been well established, and in August, 



108 INVENTORS 

1850, he began several suits to make his rights 
clear. At the same time he moved to New 
York, where he began in a small way to man- 
ufacture machines in partnership with a busi- 
ness man named Bliss, who undertook to sell 
them. 

It was not until Howe's rights to the invention 
had been fully established, which was done by 
the decision of Judge Sprague, in 1854, that the 
real value of the sewing-machine as a money- 
making venture began to be apparent ; and even 
then its great importance was so little realized, 
even by Bliss, who was in the business and died 
in 1855, that Howe was enabled to buy the inter- 
est of his heirs for a small sum. It was during 
these efforts to introduce the sewing-machine 
that occurred what were known as the sewing- 
machine riots — disturbances of no special im- 
portance, however — fomented by labor leaders 
in the New York shops in which cheap clothing 
was manufactured. Howe's sewing-machine 
was denounced as a menace to the thousands of 
men and women who worked in these shops, and 
in several establishments the first Howe machines 
introduced were so injured by mischievous per- 
sons as to retard the success of the experiment 
for nearly a. year. Failing to stop their intro- 
duction by such means a public demonstration 
against them was organized and for a time 
threatened such serious trouble that some of the 
large shops gave up the use of the machine ; but 
in small establishments employing but a few 
workmen they continued to be used and were 



ELI AS HOWE 109 

soon found to be so indispensable that all opposi- 
tion faded away. 

The patent suits forced upon Howe by a num- 
ber of infringers were costly drains upon the in- 
ventor, but in the end all other manufacturers 
were compelled to pay tribute to him, and in six 
years his royalties grew from $300 to more than 
$200,000 a year. In 1863 his royalties were esti- 
mated at $4,000 a day. At the Paris Exposition 
of 1867 he was awarded a gold medal and the 
ribbon of the Legion of Honor. 

Howe's health, never strong, was so thoroughly 
broken by the years of struggle and hardship he 
met with while trying to introduce his machine 
that he never completely recovered. If honors 
and money were any comfort to him, his last 
years must have been happy ones, for his inven- 
tion made him famous, and he had been enough 
of a workingman to recognize the blessing he 
had conferred upon millions of women released 
from the slavery of the needle ; he had answered 
Hood's '' Song of the Shirt." He died on Oc- 
tober 3, 1867, at his home in Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Those who knew Howe personally speak of 
him as rather a handsome man, with a head 
somewhat like Franklin's and a reserved, quiet 
manner. His bitter struggle against poverty 
and disease left its impress upon him even to the 
last. One trait frequently mentioned was his 
readiness to find good points in the thousand and 
one variations and sometimes improvements 
upon his invention. During the years 1858-67, 
when he died, there were recorded nearly three 



110 INVENTORS 

hundred patents affecting the sewing-machine, 
taken out by other inventors. Howe was always 
ready to help along such improvements by ad- 
vice and often by money. He fought sturdily 
for his rights, but once those conceded he was a 
generous riva,L 



V. 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 



Samuel Finley Breese Morse was the eldest 
son of the Rev. Jedediah Morse, an eminent 
New England divine. The Rev. Samuel Finley, 
D.D., second president of the College of New 



3Wr'^^^^ 




Birthplace of S. F. B. Morse, Built 1775. 

Jersey, Princeton, was his maternal great-grand- 
father, after whom he was named. Breese was 
the maiden name of his mother. The famous in- 
ventor of the telegraph was born at the foot of 
Breed's Hill, Charlestown, Mass., April 27, 1791. 



112 INVENTORS 

Dr. Belknap, of Boston, writing to Postmaster- 
General Hazard, New York, says : 

" Congratulate the Monmouth judge (Mr. 
Breese, the grandfather) on the birth of a grand- 
son. Next Sunday he is to be loaded with 
names, not quite so many as the Spanish am- 
bassador who signed the treaty of peace of 1783, 
but only four. As to the child, I saw him asleep, 
so can say nothing of his eye, or his genius peep- 
ing through it. He may have the sagacity of a 
Jewish rabbi, or the profundity of a Calvin, or 
the sublimity of a Homer for aught I know, but 
time will bring forth all things." 

Jedediah Morse studied theology under the 
Rev. Dr. Jonathan Edwards. Before he began 
preaching, and while teaching school in New 
Haven, he began his '' American Geography," 
which was afterward indentified with his name. 
He began his ministry at Norwich, whence he 
was called back to be tutor in Yale. His health 
was inadequate to the work and he went to 
Georgia, returning to Charlestown, Mass., as 
pastor of the First Congregational Church, on 
the day that Washington was inaugurated as 
President in New York, April 30, 1789. Dr. 
Eliot, speaking of Jedediah Morse, said : *' What 
an astonishing impetus that man has ! " Pres- 
ident Dwight said: ''He is as full of resources 
as an Qgg is of meat." Daniel Webster spoke of 
him as " always thinking, always writing, always 
talking, always acting." 

Morse's mother, Elizabeth Anne Breese, came 
of good Scotch-Irish stock. She was married to 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 



113 



Jedediah Morse in 1789, and was noted as a calm, 
judicious, and thinking woman, with a will of her 
own. When the child, Samuel F. B. Morse, was 
four years old he was sent to school to an old 
lady within a few hundred yards of the parsonage. 
She was an invalid, unable to leave her chair, and 




S. F. B, Morse. 



governed her unruly flock with a long rattan 
which reached across the small room in which it 
was gathered. One of her punishments was pin- 
ning the culprit to her own dress, and Morse re- 
marks that his first attempts at drawing were dis- 
couraged in this fashion. Perhaps the fact that 
he selected the old lady's face as a model had 
something to do with it. At the age of seven he 



1 14 INVENTORS 

was sent to school at Andover, where he was fit- 
ted for entering Phillips Academy, and prepared 
here for Yale, joining the class of 1807. When 
he was thirteen years old, at Andover, he wrote 
a sketch of Demosthenes and sent it to his father, 
by whom it was preserved as a mark of the 
learning and taste of the child. Dr. Timothy 
D wight was then president of Yale and a warm 
friend of the elder Morse. Finley Morse, as he 
was then known, received therefore the deep per- 
sonal interest of Dr. Dwight. Jeremiah Day was 
professor of natural philosophy in Yale College, 
and under his instruction Morse began the study 
of electricity, receiving perhaps those impres- 
sions that were destined to produce so great an 
influence upon him and, through him, upon this 
century. Professor Day was then young and 
ardent in the pursuit of science, kindling readily 
the enthusiasm of his students. He afterward be- 
came president of the college. There was at the 
same time in the faculty Benjamin Silliman, who 
was professor of chemistry, and near whom Morse 
resided for several years. Years afterward the 
testimony of Professors Day and Silliman was 
given in court, when it was important, in the 
defence of his claim to priority in the invention of 
the telegraph. Through them Morse was able to 
show that he was early interested in the study ol 
chemistry and electricity. During this litigatioii 
Morse did not know that there were scores of 
letters, written by him as a young student to his 
father, among the papers of Dr Jedediah Morse, 
that would have shown conclusively his interest 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 115 

and aptitude in these studies. The papers were 
brought to light when the life of Morse by 
Prime came to be written. 

The first part of Morse's life was devoted to 
art. At a very early age he showed his taste in 
this direction, and at the age of fifteen painted a 
fairly good picture in water colors of a room in 
his father's house, with his parents, himself, and 
two brothers around a table. This picture used 
to hang in his home in New York by the side of 
his last painting. From that time his desire to be- 
come an artist haunted him through his collegiate 
life. In February, 1 8 1 1 , he painted a picture, now 
in the office of the mayor of Charlestown, Mass., 
depicting the landing of the Pilgrims at Ply- 
mouth, which, with a landscape painted at about 
the same time, decided his father, by the advice of 
Stuart, to permit him to visit Europe with Wash- 
ington Allston. He bore letters to West and to 
Copley, from both of whom he received the 
kindest attention and encouragement. 

As a test for his fitness for a place as student 
in the Royal Academy, Morse made a drawing 
from a small cast of the Farnese Hercules. He 
took this to West, who examined the drawing 
carefully and handed it back, saying : " Very 
Avell, sir, very well ; go on and finish it." " It 
is finished," said the expectant student. " Oh, 
no," said the president. '' Look here, and here, 
and here," pointing out many unfinished places 
which had escaped the eye of the young artist. 
Morse quickly observed the defects, spent a week 
in further perfecting his drawing, and then took 



116 INVENTORS 

it to West, confident that it was above criticism. 
The venerable president of the Academy be- 
stowed more praise than before and, with a pleas- 
ant smile, handed it back to Morse, saying : 
*' Very well, indeed, sir. Go on and finish it." ^' Is 
it not finished ? " inquired the almost discouraged 
student. '' See," said West, '' you have not 
marked that muscle, nor the articulation of the 
finger-joints." Three days more were spent 
upon the drawing, when it was taken back to the 
implacable critic. " Very clever, indeed," said 
West ; '' very clever. Now go on and finish it." 
'' I cannot finish it," Morse replied, when the old 
man, patting him on the shoulder, said : " Well, 
I have tried you long enough. Now, sir, you 
have learned more by this drawing than you 
would have accomplished in double the time by 
a dozen half-finished beginnings. It is not many 
drawings, but the character of one which makes 
a thorough draughtsman. Finish one picture, 
sir, and you are a painter." 

Morse heeded this advice. He went to work 
with Allston, and encouraged by the veteran, 
Copley, he began upon a large picture for exhi- 
bition in the Royal Academy, choosing as his 
subject '' The Dying Hercules." He modelled 
his figure in clay, as the best of the old painters 
did. It was his first attempt in the sculptor's art. 
The cast was made in plaster and taken to West, 
who was delighted with it. This model con- 
tended for the prize of a gold medal offered by 
the Society of Arts for the best original cast of 
a single figure, and won it. In the large room of 



B AMU EL F. B. MO BSE 117 

the London Adelphi, in the presence of the 
British nobility, foreign ambassadors, and distin- 
guished strangers, the Duke of Norfolk publicly 
presented the medal to Morse on May 13, 18 13. 
At the same time the painting from this model, 
then on exhibition at the Royal Academy, re- 
ceived great praise from the critics, who placed 
'' The Dying Hercules " among the first twelve 
pictures in a collection of almost two thousand. 

This was an extraordinary success for so young 
a man, and Morse determined ^to try for the high- 
est prize offered by the Royal Academy for the 
best historical composition, the decision to be 
made in 181 5. For that purpose he produced 
his '' Judgment of Jupiter " in July of that year. 
VVest assured him that it would take the prize, 
but Morse was unable to comply with the rules 
of the Academy, which required the victor to 
receive the medal in person. His father had 
summoned him home. West urged the Acad- 
emy to make an exception in his case, but it 
could not be done, and the young painter had to 
be contented Avith his assurances that he would 
certainly have won the prize (a gold medal and 
$250) had he remained. 

West was always kind to Americans, and 
Morse was a favorite with him. One day, when 
the venerable painter was at work upon his great 
picture, '* Christ Rejected," after carefully ex- 
amining Morse's hands and noting their beauty, 
he said : " Let me tie you with this cord and 
take that place while I paint in the hands of the 
Saviour." This was done, and when he released 



118 INVENTORS 

the young artist, he said to him : " You may now 
say, if you please, that you had a hand in this pict- 
ure." A number of noted English artists — Tur- 
ner, Northcote, Sir James Lawrence, Flaxman — 
and literary men — Coleridge, Wordsworth, Rog- 
ers, and Crabbe among them — were attracted 
by young Morse's proficiency and pleasant man- 
ners, and when in August, 1815, he packed his 
picture, " The Judgment of Jupiter," and sailed 
for home, he bore with him the good wishes of 
some of England's most distinguished men. 

When Morse reached Boston, although but 
twenty-four years old, he found that fame had 
preceded him. His prestige was such that he 
set up his easel with high hopes and fair pros- 
pects for the future, both destined soon to be 
dispelled. The taste of America had not risen 
to the appreciation of historical pictures. His 
original compositions and his excellent copies of 
the masterpieces of the Old World excited the 
admiration of cultured people, but no orders 
were given for them. He left Boston almost 
penniless after having waited for months for pat- 
ronage, and determined to try to earn his bread 
by painting the portraits of people in the rural 
districts of New England, where his father's 
name was a household word. During the autumn 
of 1 8 16 and the winter of 18 16-18 17 he visited 
several towns in New Hampshire and Vermont, 
painting portraits in Walpole, Hanover, Wind- 
sor, Portsmouth, and Concord. He received the 
modest sum of $15 for each portrait. From 
Concord, N. H., he writes to his parents : '* I am 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 119 

still here (August i6th) and am passing my time 
very agreeably. I have painted live portraits at 
$15 each, and have two more engaged and many 
talked of. I think I shall get along well. I be- 
lieve I could make an independent fortune in a 
few years if I devoted myself exclusively to por- 
traits, so great is the desire for good portraits in 
the different country towns." He doubtless was 
candid when he wrote that he was " passing his 
time in Concord very agreeably," for it was here 
that he met Lucretia P. Walker, who was ac- 
counted the most beautiful and accomplished 
young lady of the town, whom Morse subse- 
quently married. She was a young woman of 
great personal loveliness and rare good sense. 
The young artist was attracted by her beauty, 
her sweetness of temper, and high intellectual 
qualities. All the letters that she wrote to him 
before and after their marriage he carefully pre- 
served, and these are witnesses to her intelli- 
gence, education, tenderness of feeling, and ad- 
mirable fitness to be the wife of such a man. 
Gradually Morse's portraits became so much in 
demand that he was enabled to increase his price 
to $60, and as he painted four a week upon the 
average, and received a good deal of money dur- 
ing a tour in the South, he was enabled to return 
to New England in 181 8 with $3,000, and to 
marry Miss Walker on October 6th of that year. 
The first years of Morse' s married life were 
passed in Charleston, S. C, after which he re- 
turned to New England, and having laid by 
some little capital, he took up again what he 



120 INVENTORS 

deemed to be his real vocation — the painting of 
great historical pictures. His first venture in 
this direction was an exhibition picture of the 
House of Representatives at Washington. As a 
business venture it was disastrous, and resulted 
in the loss of eighteen months of precious time. 
It was finally sold to an Englishman. Then be- 
gan Morse's life in New York. Through the in- 
fluence of Isaac Lawrence he obtained a commis- 
sion from the city authorities of New York to 
paint a full-length portrait of Lafayette, who was 
then in this country. He had just completed 
his study from life in Washington in February, 
1825, when he received the news of the death of 
his wife. A little more than a year afterward 
both his father and mother died. Thencefor- 
ward his children and art absorbed his affections. 
He was an artist, heart and soul, and his 
professional brethren soon had good reason to 
be grateful to him. The American Academy of 
Fine Arts, then under the presidency of Colonel 
John Trumbull, was in a languishing state and of 
little use to artists. The most advanced of its 
members felt the need of relief, and a few of 
them met at Morse's rooms to discuss their 
troubles. At that meeting Morse proposed the 
formation of a new society of artists, and at a 
meeting held at the New York Historical Socie- 
ty's rooms the " New York Drawing Association " 
was organized, with Morse as its president. 
Trumbull endeavored to compel the new society 
to profess allegiance to the academy, but Morse 
protested, and thanks to his advice, on January 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 



121 



1 8, 1826, a new art association was organized 
under the name of the " National Academy of 
Design." Morse was its first president, and for 
sixteen years he was annually elected to that 
office. The friends of the old academy were 
wrathful and assailed the new association. A 
war of words, in which Morse acted as the cham- 




Under Side of a Modern Switchboard, showing 2,000 Wires. 



pion of the new society, was waged until victory 
was conceded to the reformers. Thus Morse 
inaugurated a new era in the history of the fine 
arts in this country. He wrote, talked, lectured 
incessantly for the advancement of art and the 
Academy of Design. 

In 1829 Morse made a second visit to Europe, 
where he was warmly welcomed and honored by 



122 INVENTORS 

the Royal Academy. During three years or 
more he lived in continental cities, studying the 
Louvre in Paris and making of the famous gal- 
lery an exhibition picture which contained about 
fifty miniatures of the works in that collection. 
In November, 1832, he was back again in New 
York, with high hopes as to his future. AUston, 
writing to Dunlap in 1834, said: ''I rejoice to 
hear your report of Morse's advance in his art. 
I know what is in him perhaps better than any- 
one else. If he will only bring out all that is 
there he will show parts that many now do not 
dream of." 

For several years the thoughts of the artist 
Morse had been busy with a matter wholly out- 
side of his chosen domain. Some lectures on 
electro-magnetism by his intimate friend. Judge 
Freeman Dana, given at the Athenaeum while 
Morse was also lecturing there on the fine arts, 
had greatly interested him in the subject, and he 
learned much in conversation with Dana. While 
on his second visit to Europe Morse made him- 
self acquainted with the labors of scientific men 
in their endeavors to communicate intelligence 
between far-distant places by means of electro- 
magnetism, and he saw an electro-magnet signal- 
ling instrument in operation. He knew that so 
early as 1649 a Jesuit priest had prophesied an 
electric telegraph, and that for half a century or 
more students had partially succeeded in at- 
tempts of this kind. But no practical telegraph 
had yet been invented. In 1774 Le Sage made 
an electro-signalling instrument with twenty-four 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 123 

wires, one for each letter of the alphabet. In 
1825 Sturgeon invented an electro-magnet. In 
1830 Professor Henry increased the magnetic 
force that Morse afterward used. 

On board the ship Sully, in which Morse 
sailed from Havre to New York, in the autumn 
of 1832, the recent discovery in France of the 
means of obtaining an electric spark from a mag- 
net was a favorite topic of conversation among 
the passengers, and it was during the voyage 
that Morse conceived the idea of an electro-mag- 
netic and chemical recording telegraph. Before 
he reached New York he had made drawings 
and specifications of his conception, which he ex- 
hibited to his fellow passengers. Few great in- 
ventions that have made their authors immortal 
were so completely grasped at inception as this. 
Morse was accustomed to keep small note-books 
in which to make records of his work, and scores 
of these books are still in existence. As .he 
sat upon the deck of the Sully, one night 
after dinner, he drew from his pocket one of 
these books and began to make marks to repre- 
sent letters and figures to be produced by elec- 
tricity at a distance. The mechanism by which 
the results were to be reached was wrought out 
by slow and laborious thought, but the vision as 
a whole was clear. The current of electricity 
passed instantaneously to any distance along a 
wire, but the current being interrupted, a spark 
appeared. This spark represented one sign ; its 
absence another ; the time of its absence still 
another. Here are three signs to be combined 



124 INVENTORS 

into the representation of figures or letters. 
They can be made to form an alphabet. Words 
may thus be indicated. A telegraph, an instru- 
ment to record at a distance, will result. Conti- 
ents shall be crossed. This great and wide sea 
shall be no barrier. " If it will go ten miles 
without stopping," he said, " I can make it go 
around the globe." 

He worked incessantly all that next day and 
could not sleep at night in his berth. In a few 
days he submitted some rough drafts of his 
invention to William C. Rives, of Virginia, who 
was returning from Paris, Avhere he had been 
minister of the United States. Mr. Rives sug- 
gested various difficulties, over which Morse 
spent several sleepless nights, announcing in the 
morning at breakfast-table the new devices by 
which he proposed to accomplish the task before 
him. He exhibited a drawing of the instrument 
Avhich he said would do the work, and so com- 
pletely had he mastered all the details that five 
years afterward, when a model of this instru- 
ment was constructed, it was instantly recognized 
as the one he had devised and drawn in his 
sketch-book and exhibited to his fellow passen- 
gers on the ship. In view of subsequent claims 
made by a fellow passenger to the honor of hav- 
ing suggested the telegraph, these details are in- 
teresting and important. 

Circumstances delayed the construction of a 
recording telegraph by Morse, but the subject 
slumbered in his mind. Durinsf his absence 
abroad he had been elected professor of the 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 



125 



literature of the arts of design, in the Univer- 
sity of the City of New York, and this work oc- 
cupied his attention for some time. Three years 
afterward, in November, 1835, he completed 
a rude telegraph instrument— the first recording 




The First Telegraphic Instrument, as Exhibited in iSSy by Morse. 

apparatus ; but it embodied the mechanical prin- 
ciple now in use the world over. His whole 
plan was not completed until July, 1837, when by 
means of two instruments he was able to com- 
municate from as well as to a distant point. In 
September hundreds of people saw the new 
instrument in operation at the universit}-, most 
of whom looked upon it as a scientific toy con- 



126 INVENTORS 

structed by an unfortunate dreamer. The fol- 
lowing year the invention was sufficiently per- 
fected to enable Morse to direct the attention of 
Congress to it and ask its aid in the construction 
of an experimental line between Washington and 
Baltimore. 

Late in the long session of 1838 he appeared 
before that body with his instrument. Before 
leaving New York with it he had invited a few 
friends to see it work. Now began in the life of 
Morse a period of years during which his whole 
time was devoted to convincing the world, first, 
that his electric telegraph would really commu- 
nicate messages, and, secondly, that if it worked 
at all, it was of great practical value. Strange 
to say that this required any argument at all. 
But that in those days it did may be inferred 
from the fact that Morse could then find no help 
far or near. His invention was regarded as inter- 
esting, but of no importance either scientifically 
or commercially. In Washington, where he first 
went, he found so little encouragement that he 
went to Europe with the hope of drawing the 
attention of foreign governments to the advan- 
tages, and of securing patents for the invention ; 
he had filed a caveat at the Patent Office in this 
country. His mission was a failure. England 
refused him a patent, and France gave him only 
a useless paper which assured for him no special 
privileges. He returned home disappointed but 
not discouraged, and waited four years longer 
before he again attempted to interest Congress 
in his invention. 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 127 

This extraordinary struggle lasted twelve 
years, during which, with his mind absorbed in 
one idea and yet almost wholly dependent for 
bread upon his profession as an artist, it was im- 



1 




jijji 1 I iiiii 'I 

The Modern Morse Telegraph. 

possible to pursue art with the enthusiasm and 
industry essential to success. His situation was 
forlorn in the extreme. The father of three little 
children, now motherless, his pecuniary means 
exhausted by his residence in Europe, and un- 
able to pursue art without sacrificing his inven- 
tion, he was at his wits' ends. He had visions 
of usefulness by the invention of a telegraph that 
should bring the continents of the earth into 
intercourse. He was poor and knew that wealth 
as well as fame was within his reach. He had 
long received assistance from his father and 
brothers when his profession did not supply the 
needed means of support for himself and family ; 
but it seemed like robbery to take the money of 
others for experiments, the success of which he 
could not expect them to believe in until he 
could give practical evidence that the instrument 
would do the work proposed. It was the old 
story of genius contending with poverty. His 
brothers comforted, encouraged, and cheered 



128 INVENTORS 

him. In the house of his brother Richard he 
found a home and the tender care that he re- 
quired. Sidney, the other brother, also helped 
him. On the corner of Nassau and Beekman 
Streets, now the site of the handsome Morse 
Building, his brothers erected a building where 
were the offices of the newspaper of which they 
were the editors and proprietors. In the fifth 
story of this building a room was assigned to 
him which was for several years his studio, 
bedroom, parlor, kitchen, and workshop. On 
one side of the room stood a little cot on which 
he slept in the brief hours which he allowed 
himself for repose. On the other side stood his 
lathe with which the inventor turned the brass 
apparatus necessary in the construction of his 
instruments. He had, with his own hands, first 
v/hittled the model ; then he made the moulds for 
the castings. Here were brought to him, day 
by day, crackers and the simplest food, by which, 
with tea prepared by himself, he sustained life 
while he toiled incessantly to give being to the 
idea that possessed him. 

Before leaving for Europe he had suffered a 
great disappointment as an artist. The govern- 
ment had offered to American artists, to be se- 
lected by a committee of Congress, commissions 
to paint pictures for the panels in the rotunda of 
the Capitol. Morse was anxious to be employed 
upon one or more of them. He was the presi- 
dent of the National Academy of Design, and 
there was an eminent fitness in calling him to 
this national work. Allston urged the appoint- 




Morse Making his own Instrument. 
(From Prime's Life of Morse.) 



130 INVENTORS 

ment of Morse. John Ouincy Adams, then a 
member of the House and on the committee to 
whom this subject was referred, submitted a 
resolution in the House that foreign artists be 
allowed to compete for these commissions, and 
in support alleged that there were no American 
artists competent to execute the paintings. This 
gave great and just offence to the artists and the 
public. A severe reply to Adams appeared in 
the New York Evening Post. It was written by 
James Fenimore Cooper, but it was attributed 
to Morse, whose pen was well known to be skil- 
ful, and in consequence his name was rejected 
by the committee. He never recovered fully 
from the effects of that blow. Forty years after- 
ward he could not speak of it without emotion. 
He had consecrated years of his life to the 
preparation lor just such work. 

It was well for him and for his country and 
the world that the artist in Morse was disap- 
pointed. From painter he became inventor, and 
from that time until the world acknowledged 
the greatness and importance of his invention 
he turned not back. His appointment as pro- 
fessor in the City University entitled him to cer- 
tain rooms in the University Building looking 
out upon Washington Square, and here the first 
working models of the telegraph were brought 
into existence. 

"■ There," he says, '' I immediately com- 
menced, with very limited means, to experiment 
upon my invention. My first instrument was 
made up of an old picture or canvas frame fas- 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 



131 



tened to a table ; the wheels of an old wooden 
clock, moved by a weight to carry the paper 
forward ; three wooden drums, upon one of 
which the paper was wound and passed over 
the other two ; a wooden pendulum suspended 
to the top piece of the picture or stretching 
frame and vibrating across the paper as it 
passes over the centre wooden drum ; a pencil 




Train Telegraph — the message transmitted by induction from the moving train to 

the single wire. 

at the lower end of the pendulum, in contact 
with the paper; an electro-magnet fastened to a 
shelf across the picture or stretching frame, op- 
posite to an armature made fast to the pendu- 
lum ; a type rule and type for breaking the 
circuit, resting on an endless band, composed of 
carpet-binding, which passed over two wooden 
rollers moved by a wooden crank. 

"Up to the autumn of 1837 my telegraphic 
apparatus existed in so rude a form that I felt a 



132 



INVENTORS 



reluctance to have it seen. My means were very 
limited — so limited as to preclude the possibility 
of constructing an apparatus of such mechanical 




Interior of a Car on the Lehigh Valley Railroad, showing the Method of Operating 

the Train Telegraph. 

finish as to warrant my success in venturing 
upon its public exhibition. I had no wish to ex- 
pose to ridicule the representative of so many 
hours of laborious thought. Prior to the sum- 
mer of 1837, at which time Mr. Alfred Vail's at- 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 133 

tention became attracted to my telegraph, I 
depended upon my pencil for subsistence. In- 
deed, so straitened were my circumstances that, 
in order to save time to carry out my invention 
and to economize my scanty means, I had for 
many months lodged and eaten in my studio, 
procuring my food in small quantities from some 
grocery and preparing it myself. To conceal 
from my friends the stinted manner in which I 
lived, I was in the habit of bringing my food to 
my room in the evenings, and this was my mode 
of life for many years." 

Before the telegraph was actually tried and 
practised the cumbersome piano-key board de- 
vised by Morse in his first experiments was done 
away with and the simple device of a single key, 
with which we are all familiar, was adopted. 
Meantime Morse was practically abandoning art. 
His friends among the profession had subscribed 
$3,000 in order to enable him to paint the picture 
he had in mind when he applied for the govern- 
ment work at Washington, " The Signing of the 
First Compact on Board the Mayflower," and he 
undertook the commission in 1838, only to give 
it up in 1 841 and to return to the subscribers the 
amount paid with interest. 

While Morse had been in Paris, in 1839, ^^ ^^^ 
heard of Daguerre, who had discovered the 
method of fixing the image of the camera, which 
feat was then creating a great sensation among 
scientific men. Professor Morse was anxious to 
see the results of this discovery before leaving 
Paris, and the American consul, Robert Walsh, 



134 



INVENTORS 



arranged an interview between the two inven- 
tors. Daguerre promised to send to Morse a 
copy of the descriptive publication which he in- 
tended to make so soon as a pension he expected 
from the French Government for the disclosure 
of his discovery should be secured. He kept his 




Diagram showing the Method of Telegraphing fronn a Moving Train by Induction. 

promise, and Morse was probably the first recipi- 
ent of the pamphlet in this country. From the 
drawings it contained he constructed the first 
photographic apparatus made in the United 
States, and from a back window in the Univer- 
sity Building he obtained a good representation 
of the tower of the Church of the Messiah on 
Broadway. This possesses an historical interest 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 135 

as being" the first photograph in America. It was 
on a plate the size of a playing-card. With Pro- 
fessor J. W. Draper, in a studio built on the roof 
of the University, he succeeded in taking like- 
nesses of the living human face. His subjects 
were compelled to sit fifteen minutes in the 
bright sunlight, with their eyes closed, of 
course. Professor Draper shortened the process 
and was the first to take portraits with the eyes 
open. 

At the session of Congress of 1 842-1 843 Morse 
again appeared with his telegraph, and on Feb- 
ruary 21, 1843, John P. Kennedy, of Maryland, 
moved that a bill appropriating $30,000, to be ex- 
pended, under the direction of the Secretary of 
the Treasury, in a series of experiments for test- 
ing the merits of the telegraph, should be consid- 
ered. The proposal met with ridicule. John- 
son, of Tennessee, moved, as an amendment, that 
one-half should be given to a lecturer on mes- 
merism, then in Washington, to try mesmeric ex- 
periments under the direction of the Secretary 
of the Treasury; and Mr. Houston said that 
Millerism ought to be included in the benefits of 
the appropriation. After the indulgence of 
much cheap wit, Mr. Mason, of Ohio, protested 
against such frivolity as injurious to the charac- 
ter of the House and asked the chair to rule the 
amendments out of order. The chair (John 
White, of Kentucky) ruled the amendments in 
order because *' it would require a scientific 
analysis to determine how far the magnetism of 
the mesmerism was analogous to that to be em- 



13G INVENTORS 

ployed in telegraphy." This wit was applauded 
by peals of laughter, but the amendment was 
voted down and the bill passed the House on 
February 23d by the close vote of 89 to 83. In 
the Senate the bill met with neither sneers nor 
opposition, but its progress was discouragingly 
slow. At twilight on the last evening of the 
session (March 3, 1842) there were one hundred 
and nineteen bills before it. It seemed impossi- 
ble for it to be reached in regular course before 
the hour of adjournment should arrive, and 
Morse, who had anxiously watched the dreary 
course of business all day from the gallery of the 
Senate chamber, went with a sad heart to his 
hotel and prepared to leave for New York at an 
early hour the next morning. His cup of disap- 
pointment seemed to be about full. With the 
exception of Alfred Vail, a young student in the 
University, through whose influence some money 
had been subscribed in return for a one-fourth 
interest in the invention, and of Professor L. D. 
Gale, who had shown much interest in the work 
and was also a partner in the enterprise, Morse 
knew of no one who seemed to believe enough 
in him and his telegraph to advance another 
dollar. 

As he came down to breakfast the next morn- 
ing a young lady entered and came forward 
with a smile, exclaiming, " I have come to con- 
gratulate you." ''Upon what?" inquired the 
professor. *' Upon the passage of your bill," 
she replied. *' Impossible ! Its fate was sealed 
last evening. You must be mistaken." *' Not 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 137 

at all/' answered the 3^oung lady, the daughter 
of Morse's friend, the Commissioner of Patents, 
H. L. Ellsworth ; " father sent me to tell you that 
your bill was passed. He remained until the 
session closed, and yours was the last bill but 
one acted upon, and it v/as passed just five 
minutes before the adjournment. And I am so 
glad to be able to be the first one to tell you. 
Mother sa3^s you must come home w^th me to 
breakfast." 

Morse, overcome by the intelligence, promised 
that his young friend, the bearer of these good 
tidings, should send the first message over the 
first line of telegraph that was opened. 

He writes to Alfred Vail that day : " The 
amount of business before the Senate rendered 
it more and more doubtful, as the session drew 
to a close, whether the House bill on the tele- 
graph would be reached, and on the last day, 
March 3, 1843, I ^^as advised by one of my 
Senatorial friends to make up my mind for fail- 
ure, as he deemed it next to impossible that it 
could be reached before the adjournment. The 
bill, however, was reached a few minutes before 
midnight and passed. This was the turning 
point in the history of the telegraph. My per- 
sonal funds were reduced to the fraction of a 
dollar, and, had the passage of the bill failed 
from any cause, there would have been little 
prospect of another attempt on my part to intro- 
duce to the world my new invention." 

The appropriation by Congress having been 
made, Morse went to work with energy and 



138 INVENTORS 

delight to construct the first line of his electric 
telegraph. It was important that it should be 
laid where it would attract the attention of the 
government, and this consideration decided the 
question in favor of a line between Washington 
and Baltimore. He had as assistants Professor 
Gale and Professor J. C. Fisher. Mr. Vail was 
to devote his attention to making the instru- 
ments and the purchase of materials. Morse 
himself was general superintendent under the 
appointment of the government and gave atten- 
tion to the minutest details. All disbursements 
passed through his hands. In point of accuracy, 
the preservation of vouchers, and presentation of 
accounts. General Washington himself was not 
more precise, lucid, and correct. Ezra Cornell, 
afterward one of the most successful constructors 
of telegraph lines, was employed to take charge 
of the work under Morse. Much time and 
expense were lost in consequence of following a 
plan for laying the wires in a leaden tube, and it 
was only when it was decided to string them on 
posts that work began to proceed rapidly. 

In expectation of the meeting of the Nation- 
al Whig Convention, May i, 1844, to nominate 
candidates for President and Vice-President, 
energy was redoubled, and by that time the 
wires were in working order twenty-two miles 
from Washington toward Baltimore. The day 
before the convention mei, Professor Morse 
wrote to Vail that certain signals should mean 
the nomination of a particular candidate. The 
experiment was approaching its crisis. The con- 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 



139 



vention assembled and Henry Clay was nom- 
inated by acclamation to the Presidency. The 
news was conveyed on the railroad to the 
point reached by the telegraph and thence in- 
stantly transmitted over the wires to Washing- 
ton. An hour afterward passengers arriving 
at the capital, and supposing that they had 
brought the first intelligence, were surprised to 




Morse in his Study. 
(From an old print.) 

find that the announcement had been made al- 
ready and that they were the bearers of old 
news. The convention shortly afterward nom- 
inated Frelinghuysen as Vice-President, and 
the intelligence was sent to Washington in the 
same manner. Public astonishment was great 
and many persons doubted that the feat could 
have been performed. Before May had elapsed 
the line reached Baltimore. 

On the 24th of May, 1844, Morse was prepared 



140 INVENTORS 

to put to final test the great experiment on which 
his mind had been laboring for twelve anxious 
years. Vail, his assistant, was at the Baltimore 
terminus. Morse had invited his friends to as- 
semble in the chamber of the United States 
Supreme Court, where he had his instrument, 
from which the wires extended to Baltimore. 
He had promised his young friend, Miss Ells- 
worth, that she should send the first message 
over the wires. Her mother suggested the 
familiar words of scripture (Numbers, xxiii. 23), 
^' What hath God wrousfht ! " The words were 
chosen without consultation with the inventor, 
but were singularly the expression of his own 
sentiment and his own experience in bringing his 
work to successful accomplishment. Perfectly 
religious in his convictions, and trained from 
earliest childhood to believe in the special super- 
intendence of Providence in the minutest affairs 
of man, he had acted throughout the whole of 
his struggles under the firm persuasion that God 
was working in him to do His own pleasure in 
this thing. 

The first public messages sent were a notice to 
Silas Wrisfht in Washinsrton of his nomination 
to the office of Vice-President of the United 
States by the Democratic convention, then in 
session (May, 1844) in Baltimore, and his re- 
sponse declining it. Hendrick B. Wright, in a 
letter written to Mr. B. J. Lossing, saj^s : ''As 
the presiding officer of the body I read the de- 
spatch, but so incredulous were the members as 
to the authority of the evidence before them 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 141 

that the convention adjourned over to the fol- 
lowing day to await the report of the committee 
sent over to Washington to get reliable informa- 
tion on the subject." Mr. Vail kept a diary in 
those early days of the telegraph, full of inter- 
esting reminiscences. It was often necessary, in 
order to convince incredulous visitors to the 
office that the questions and replies sent over 
the wire were not manufactured or agreed upon 
beforehand, to allow them to send their own re- 
marks. When the committee just mentioned by 
Mr. Wright returned from Baltimore and con- 
firmed the correctness of the report given by 
telegraph, the new invention received a splendid 
advertisement. The convention having reassem- 
bled in the morning, and the refusal of Wright 
to accept the nomination having been communi- 
cated, a conference was held between him and 
his friends through the medium of Morse's wires. 
In Washington Mr. Wright and Mr. Morse were 
closeted with the instrument ; at Baltimore the 
committee of conference surrounded Vail with 
his instrument. Spectators and auditors were 
excluded. The committee communicated to Mr. 
Wright their reasons for urging his acceptance. 
In a moment he received their communication 
in writing and as quickly returned his answer. 
Again and again these confidential messages 
passed, and the result was finally announced to 
the convention that Mr. Wright was inflexible. 
Mr. Dallas then received the nomination and ac- 
cepted it. The ticket thus nominated was suc- 
cessful at the election of that year. The original 



142 INVENTORS 

slips of paper on which some of the early mes- 
sages were written are still preserved, among 
others this request: "As a rumor is prevalent 
here this morning that Mr. Eugene Boyle was 
shot at Baltimore last evening, Professor Morse 
will confer a great favor upon the family by 
making inquiry by means of his electro-magnetic 
telegraph if such is the fact." 

The telegraph was shown at first without 
charge. During the session of 1 844-1 845 Con- 
gress made an appropriation of $8,000 to keep it 
in operation during the year, placing it under 
the supervision of the Postmaster-General, who, 
at the close of the session, ordered a tariff of 
charges of one cent for every four characters 
made through the telegraph. Mr. Vail was ap- 
pointed operator for the Washington station and 
Mr. H. J. Rogers for Baltimore. This new order 
of things began April i, 1845, the object being 
to test the profitableness of the enterprise. The 
first day's income was one cent ; on the fifth 
day twelve and a half cents were received ; on 
the seventh the receipts ran up to sixty cents ; 
on the eighth to one dollar and thirty -two 
cents ; on the ninth to one dollar and four 
cents. It is worthy of remark, as Mr. Vail 
notes, that the business done after the tariff 
was fixed was greater than when the service 
was gratuitous. 

The telegraph was now a reality. Its com- 
pletion was hailed with enthusiasm, and the 
newspapers lauded the inventor to the skies. 
Resolutions of thanks and applause were adopted 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 143 

by popular assemblies. It was a favorite idea 
with Professor Morse, from the inception of his 
enterprise, that the telegraph should belong to 
the government, and he sent a communication 
to Congress making a formal offer. The overture 
was not accepted, but the extension of the line 
from Baltimore to Philadelphia and then to New 
York was only a work of time. The aid of Con- 
gress was sought in vain. The appropriation of 
$8,000 was made, but further than that the gov- 
ernment declined to go. The sum named as the 
price at which the Morse Company would sell 
the telegraph to the government was $100,000. 
The subject was discussed in the report of Cave 
Johnson, Postmaster- General under President 
Polk. He was a member of Congress when the 
bill came up before the House appropriating 
$30,000 for the experimental line, and was one of 
those who ridiculed the whole subject as unwor- 
thy of the notice of sensible men. As Postmas- 
ter-General he said in his report, after the ex- 
periment had succeeded to the satisfaction of 
mankind, that " the operation of a telegraph be- 
tween Washington and Baltimore had not satis- 
fied him that under any rate of postage that could 
be adopted its revenues could be made equal to 
its expenditures." Such an opinion, with the ev- 
idence then in the possession of the department, 
appears to be curious official blindness. But it 
was fortunate for the inventor that the telegraph 
was left to the private enterprise. Twenty-five 
years after the government had declined to take 
the telegraph at the price of $100,000, a project 



144 INVENTORS 

was started to establish lines of telegraph to be 
used by the government as part of the mail postal 
system. And in 1873 the Postmaster-General, 
Mr. Cresswell, said in his report that the entire 
first cost of all the lines in the country, including 
patents, was less than $10,000,000; but the prop- 
erty of the existing telegraph company was al- 
ready well worth $50,000,000. 

Morse's position was far easier than it had 
been for many years. His old friends, the artists 
of New York, rallied in force and laid before 
Congress a petition that the professor be em- 
ployed to execute the painting to fill the panel 
at the Capitol assigned to Inman, who had been 
removed by death. But it came to nothing. 
Morse was never again to take the brush in hand. 
The first money that he received from his inven- 
tion was the sum of $47, being his share of the 
amount paid for the right to use his patent on a 
short line from the Washington Post-ofihce to 
the National Observatory. The use he made of 
the money was characteristic of the man. He 
sent it to the Rev. Dr. Sprole, then a pastor in 
Washington, requesting him to apply it for the 
benefit of his church. 

Early in June, 1846, the line from Baltimore 
to Philadelphia was in operation, and that from 
Philadelphia to New York. Abroad the system 
was working its way steadily into favor. In 
France an appropriation of nearly half a million 
francs was made to introduce the Morse system. 
But meantime violations of Morse's ris^hts were 
beginning to crop up on every side, both at liome 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 145 

and abroad. In a letter to Daniel Lord, his law- 
yer, Morse says : 

" The plot thickens all around me ; 1 think a 
denouement not far off. I remember your con- 
soling me under these attacks with bidding me 
think that I had invented something worth con- 
tending for. Alas ! my dear sir, what encour- 
agement is there to an inventor if, after years of 
toil and anxiety, he has only purchased for him- 
self the pleasure of being a target for every vile 
fellow to shoot at, and in proportion as his inven-^ 
tion is of public utility, so much the greater 
effort is to be made to defame that the robbery 
may excite the less sympathy ? I know, how- 
ever, that beyond all this there is a clear sky ; 
but the clouds may not break away till I am no 
longer personally interested, whether it be foul 
or fair. I wish not to complain, but I have feel- 
ings, and cannot play the Stoic if I would." 

Perhaps the most painful chapter of Morse's 
life is the history of the lawsuits in which he 
was involved in defence of his rights. His rep- 
utation as well as his property were assailed. 
Exceedingl}^ sensitive to these attacks, the suits 
that followed the success of the telegraph cost 
him inexpressible distress. It is some satisfac- 
tion to be able to record that after years of bit- 
ter controversy the final decision was favorable 
to the inventor. Honors began to pour in upon 
him from even the uttermost parts of the earth. 
The Sultan of Turkey was the first monarch to 
acknowledge Morse as a public benefactor. This 
was in 1848. The kings of Prussia and Wurtem- 
10 



146 



INVENTORS 



burg and the Emperor of Austria each gave him 
a gold medal, that of the first named being set in 
a massive gold snuff-box. In 1856 the Emperor 
of the French made him a chevalier of the Le- 
gion of Honor. Orders from Denmark, Spain, 
Italy, Portugal soon followed. In 1858 a special 







'>% 



^w 



The Siphon Recorder for Receiving Cable Messages — Office of the Commercial 
Cable Company, i Broad Street, New York. 

congress was called by the Emperor of the 
French to devise a suitable testimonial of the 
nation to Professor Morse. Representatives 
from ten sovereignties convened at Paris and by 
a unanimous vote gave, in the aggregate, $80,000 
as an honorary gratuity to Professor Morse. 
The states participating in this testimonial were 
France, Austria, Russia, Belgium, Holland, Swe- 



SAMUEL F, B. MOUSE 147 

den, Piedmont, the Holy See, Tuscany, and Tur- 
key. 

Professor Morse was one of the first to sug- 
gest and the first to carry out the use of a ma- 
rine cable. During the summer of 1842 he had 
been making elaborate preparations for an ex- 
periment destined to give wonderful develop- 
ment to his invention. This was no less than 
a submarine wire, to demonstrate the fact that 
the current of electricity could be conducted 
as well under water as through the air. Of 
this he had entertained no doubt. " If I can 
make it work ten miles, I can make it go around 
the globe," was a favorite expression of his in the 
infancy of his enterprise. But he wished to prove 
it. He insulated his wire as well as he could 
with hempen strands well covered with pitch, 
tar, and india-rubber. In the course of the 
autumn he was prepared to put the question 
to the test of actual experiment. The wire was 
only the twelfth of an inch in diameter. About 
two miles of this, wound on a reel, was placed in 
a small row-boat, and with one man at the oars 
and Professor Morse at the stern, the work of 
paying out the cable was begun. It was a beau- 
tiful moonlight night, and those who had pro- 
longed their evening rambles on the Battery must 
have wondered, as they watched the proceedings 
in the boat, what kind of fishing the two men 
could be engaged in that required so long a line. 
In somewhat less than two hours, on that eventful 
evening of October 18, 1842, the first cable was 
laid. Professor Morse returned to his lodgings 



148 INVENTORS 

and waited with some anxiety the time when he 
should be able to test the experiment fully and 
fairly. The next morning the New York Her- 
ald contained the following editorial announce- 
ment : 

'' Morse's Electro-Magnetic Telegraph. 

'* This important invention is to be exhibited in 
operation at Castle Garden between the hours of 
twelve and one o'clock to-day. One telegraph 
will be erected on Governor's Island and one at 
the Castle, and messages will be interchanged 
and orders transmitted during the day. Many 
have been incredulous as to the powers of this 
wonderful triumph of science and art. All such 
may now have an opportunity of fairly testing it. 
It is destined to work a complete revolution 
in the mode of transmitting intelligence through- 
out the civilized world." 

At daybreak the professor was on the Battery, 
and had just demonstrated his success by the 
transmission of three or four characters between 
the termini of the line, when the communication 
was suddenly interrupted, and it was found im- 
possible to send any messages through the con- 
ductor. The cause of this was evident when he 
observed no less than seven vessels lying along 
the line of the submerged cable, one of which, in 
getting under way, had raised it on her anchor. 
The sailors, unable to divine its meaning, hauled 
in about two hundred feet of it on deck, and find- 
ing no end, cut off that portion and carried it 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 149 

away with them. Thus ended the first attempt 
at submarine telegraphing. The crowd that had 
assembled on the Battery dispersed with jeers, 
most of them believing they had been made the 
victims of a hoax. 

In a letter to John C. Spencer, then Secretary 
of the Treasury, in August, 1843, concerning elec- 
tro-magnetism and its powers, he wrote : 

" The practical inference from this law is that 
a telegraphic communication on the electro-mag- 
netic plan may with certainty be established 
across the Atlantic Ocean. Startling as this 
may now seem, I am confident the time will 
come when this project will be realized." 

In 1 87 1 a statue of Professor Morse was erected 
in Central Park, New York, at the expense of the 
telegraph operators of the country. It was un- 
veiled on June loth with imposing ceremonies. 
There were delegates from every State in the 
Union, and from the British provinces. In the 
evening a public reception was given to the ven- 
erable inventor at the Academy of Music, at 
which William Orton, president of the Western 
Union Telegraph Company, presided, assisted 
by scores of the leading public men of the coun- 
try as vice-presidents. The last scene was an im- 
pressive one. It was announced that the tele- 
graphic instrument before the audience was then 
in connection with every other one of the ten 
thousand instruments in America. Then Miss 
Cornell, a young telegraphic operator, sent this 
message from the key : " Greeting and thanks to 
the telegraph fraternity throughout the world. 



150 INVENTORS 

Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, 
good-will to men," The venerable inventor, the 
personification of simplicity, dignity, and kindli- 
ness, was then conducted to the instrument, and 
touching the key, sent out: '' S. F. B. Morse." 
A storm of enthusiasm swept through the house 
as the audience rose, the ladies waving their 
handkerchiefs and the men cheering. 

Professor Morse last appeared in public on 
February 22, 1872, when he unveiled the statue 
of Franklin, erected in Printing-house Square in 
New York. He died, after a short illness, on 
April 2, 1872, and was buried in Greenwood 
Cemetery. On the day of the funeral, April 5th, 
every telegraph office in the country was draped 
in mourning. 

Professor Morse was twice married. His first 
wife died in 1825. In 1848 he married Sarah 
Elizabeth Griswold, of Poughkeepsie, who still 
lives. By the first marriage there were three 
children, one of whom, a son, survives. By the 
second marriage there were four children, three 
of whom are alive — a daughter and two sons. 
Miss Leila Morse, the daughter, was married in 
1885 to Herr Franz Rummel, the eminent pianist. 
The last years of his life were eminently peaceful 
and happy. In the summer he lived at a place 
called Locust Grove, on the banks of the Hudson, 
near Poughkeepsie, and in the winter in a house 
at No. 5 West Twenty-second Street, a few doors 
west of Fifth Avenue. In recent years a marble 
tablet has been affixed to the front of the house, 
suitably inscribed. 




No. 5 West Twenty-second Street, New York, where Morse Lived for Many Years 

and Died. 



152 INVENTORS 

Morse's life in the country was very simple and 
quiet. His hour of rising was half-past six 
o'clock in the morning, and he was in his library 
alone until breakfast, at eight. He loved to hear 
the birds in their native songs, and he could dis- 
tinguish the notes of each species, and would 
speak of the quality of their respective music. 
He spent most of the day in reading and writ- 
ing, rarely taking exercise, except walking in 
his garden to visit his graperies, in which he 
took special pride, or to the stable to see if his 
horses were well cared for. He did not ride out 
regularly with his family, preferring the repose 
of his own grounds and the labors of his study. 
But when he walked or rode in the country, he 
was constantly disposed to speak of the beauty 
and glory around him, as revealing to his mind 
the beneficence, wisdom, and power of the infinite 
Creator, who had made all these things for the 
use and enjoyment of men. 

One of his daughters writes of him in these 
simple and tender words : " He loved flowers. 
He would take one in his hand and talk for hours 
about its beauty, its wonderful construction, and 
the wisdom and love of God in making so many 
varied forms of life and color to please our eyes. 
In his later years he became deeply interested in 
the microscope and purchased one of great ex- 
cellence and power. For whole hours, all the 
afternoon or evening, he would sit over it, exam- 
ining flowers or the animalculas in different fluids. 
Then he would gather his children about him and 



SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 153 

give us a sort of extempore lecture on the won- 
ders of creation invisible to the naked eye, but 
so clearly brought to view by the magnifying 
power of the microscope. He was very fond of 
animals, cats, and birds in particular. He tamed 
a little flying-squirrel, and it became so fond of 
him that it would sit on his shoulder while he 
was at his studies and would eat out of his hand 
and sleep in his pocket. To this little animal he 
became so much attached that we took it with 
us to Europe, where it came to an untimely end, 
in Paris, by running into an open fire." 
His biographer. Prime, says of him : 
'' In person Professor Morse was tall, slender, 
graceful, and attractive. Six feet in stature, he 
stood erect and firm, even in old age. His blue 
eyes were expressive of genius and affection. 
His nature was a rare combination of solid intel- 
lect and delicate sensibility. Thoughtful, sober, 
and quiet, he readily entered into the enjoyments 
of domestic and social life, indulging in sallies of 
humor, and readily appreciating and greatly en- 
joying the wit of others. Dignified in his inter- 
course with men, courteous and affable with the 
gentler sex, he was a good husband, a judicious 
father, a generous and faithful friend. He had 
the misfortune to incur the hostility of men who 
would deprive him of the merit and the reward 
of his labors. But his was the common fate of 
great inventors. He lived until his rights were 
vindicated by every tribunal to which they could 
be referred, and acknowledged by all civilized 



154 INVENTORS 

nations. And he died leaving to his children a 
spotless and illustrious name, and to his c'ountry 
the honor of having given birth to the only 
electro-magnetic recording telegraph whose line 
has gone out through all the earth and its words 
to the end of the world." 







Charles Goodyear. 



VI. 

CHARLES GOODYEAR. 

India-RUBBER had been known for more than 
a hundred years when Charles Goodyear under- 
took to make of it thousands of articles useful in 
common life. So long ago as 1735 a party of 
French astronorners discovered in Peru a curi- 
ous tree that yielded the natives a peculiar gum 
or sap which they collected in clay vessels. 
This sap became hard when exposed to the sun, 
and was used by the natives, who made different 
articles of every-day use from it by dipping a 
clay mould again and again into the liquid. 
When the article was completed the clay mould 
was broken to pieces and shaken out. In this 
manner they made a kind of rough shoe and an 
equally rough bottle. In some parts of South 
America the natives presented their guests with 
these bottles, which served as syringes for 
squirting water. Articles thus made were liable 
to become stiff and unmanageable in cold weather 
and soft and sticky in warm. Upon getting back 
to France the travellers directed the attention 
of scientists to this remarkable gum, which was 
afterward found in various parts of South Amer- 
ica, and the chief supplies of which still come 
from Brazil. About the beginning of the pres- 



150 INVENTORS 

ent century this substance, known variously as 
cachuchu, caoutchouc, gum-elastic, and india- 
rubber, was first commercially introduced into 
Europe. It was regarded merely as a curiosity, 
chiefly useful for erasing pencil-marks. Ships 
from South America took it over as ballast. 
About the year 1820 it began to be used in 
France in the manufacture of suspenders and 
garters, india-rubber threads being mixed with 
the material used in weaving those articles. 
Some years later Mackintosh, an English manu- 
facturer, used it in his famous water-proof coats, 
which were made by spreading a layer of the 
gum between two pieces of cloth. 

About the same time a pair of india-rubber 
shoes were exhibited in Boston, where they were 
regarded as a curiosity ; they were covered with 
gilt-foil to hide their natural ugliness. In 1823 a 
Boston merchant, engaged in the South American 
trade, imported five hundred pairs of these shoes, 
made by the natives of Para, and found no dif- 
ficulty in selling them. In fact, this became a 
large business, although these shoes were terri- 
bly rough and clumsy and were not to be de- 
pended upon; in cold weather they became so 
hard that they could be used only after being 
thawed by the fire, and in summer they could 
be preserved only by keeping them on ice. If 
during the thawing process they were placed 
too near the fire, they would melt into a shape- 
less mass ; and yet they cost from three to five 
dollars a pair. 

In 1830 E. M. Chaffee, of Boston, the. foreman 



CBARLES GOODYEAR 157 

of a patent leather factory in that city, attempt- 
ed to replace patent leather by a compound of 
india-rubber. He dissolved a pound of the gum 
in spirits of turpentine, added to the mixture 
enough lam_p-black to produce a bright black 
color, and invented a machine for spreading this 
compound over cloth. When dried in the sun 
it produced a hard, smooth surface, flexible 
enough to be twisted into any shape without 
cracking. With the aid of a few capitalists, 
Chaffee organized, in 1833, a company called the 
Roxbury India-rubber Company, and manufact- 
ured an india-rubber cloth from which wagon- 
covers, piano-covers, caps, coats, shoes, and other 
articles were made. The product of the factory 
sold well, and the success of the Roxbury Com- 
pany led to the establishment of a number of sim- 
ilar factories elsev/here. Apparently all who 
were engaged in the production of rubber goods 
were on the highway to wealth. 

A day of disaster, however, came. Most of 
the goods produced in the winter of 1 833-1 834 
became worthless during the following summer. 
The shoes melted to a soft mass and the caps, 
wagon-covers, and coats became sticky and use- 
less. To make matters worse they emitted an 
odor so offensive that it was necessary to bury 
them in the ground. Twenty thousand dollars* 
worth of these goods were thrown back on the 
hands of the Roxbury Company alone, and the 
directors were appalled by the ruin that threat- 
ened them. It was useless to go on manufactur- 
ing goods that might prove worthless at any 



158 INVENTORS 

moment. India-rubber stock fell rapidly, and by 
the end of 1836 there was not a solvent rubber 
company in the Union, the stockholders losing 
about $2,000,000. People came to detest the very 
name of india-rubber. 

One day, in 1834, a Philadelphia hardware 
merchant, named Charles Goodyear, was led by 
curiosity to buy a rubber life-preserver. And 
thus began for this unfortunate genius nearly 
twenty-five years of struggle, misery, and dis- 
appointment. Charles Goodyear was born in 
New Haven, Conn., December 29, 1800. When 
a boy his father moved to Philadelphia, where 
he engaged in the hardware business, and 
upon becoming of age, Charles Goodyear joined 
Lim as a partner. In the panic of 1 836-1 837 the 
house went down. Goodyear's attention had 
been attracted for several years by the wonder- 
ful success of the india-rubber companies. Upon 
examining his life-preserver he discovered a de- 
fect in the inflating valve and made an improved 
one. Going to New York with this device, he 
called on the agent of the Roxbury Company 
and, explaining it to him, offered to sell it to 
the company. The agent was impressed with 
the improvement, but instead of buying it, told 
the inventor the real state of the india-rubber 
business of the country, then on the verge of a 
collapse. He urged Goodyear to exert his in- 
ventive skill in discovering some means of im- 
parting durability to india-rubber goods, and 
assured him that if he could find a process to 
effect that end, he could sell it at his own price. 



CHARLES GOODYEAR 159 

He explained the processes then in use and their 
imperfections. 

Goodyear forgot all about his disappointment 
in failing to sell his valve, and went home intent 
upon experiments to make gum-elastic durable. 
From that time until the close of his life he de- 
voted himself solely to this work. He was thir- 
ty-five years old, feeble in health, a bankrupt 
in business, and had a young family depending 
upon him. The industry in which he now en- 
gaged was one in which thousands of persons 
had found ruin. The firm of which he had been 
a member owed $30,000, and upon his return to 
Philadelphia he was arrested for debt and com- 
pelled to live within prison limits. He began his 
experiments at once. The price of the gum had 
fallen to five cents per pound, so that he had no 
difficulty in getting sufficient of it to begin work. 
By melting and working it thoroughly and roll- 
ing it out upon a stone table, he succeeded in pro- 
ducing sheets of india-rubber that seemed to him 
to possess new properties. A friend loaned him 
enough money to manufacture a number of shoes 
which at first seemed to be all that could be 
desired. Fearful, however, of coming trouble, 
Goodyear put his shoes away until the following 
summer, when the warm weather reduced them 
to a mass of so offensive an odor that he was 
glad to throw them away. His friend was so 
thoroughly disheartened by this failure as to 
refuse to have anything more to do Avith 
Goodyear's scheme. The inventor, nevertheless, 
kept on. 



160 INVENTORS 

It occurred to him that there must be some 
substance which, mixed with the gum, would ren- 
der it durable, and he began to experiment with 
almost every substance that he could lay his 
hands on. All proved total failures with the 
exception of magnesia. By mixing half a pound 
of magnesia with a pound of the gum he pro- 
duced a substance whiter than the pure gum, 
which was at first as firm and flexible as leather, 
and out of which he made beautiful book-covers 
and piano-covers. It looked as if he had solved 
the problem ; but in a month his pretty product 
was ruined. Heat caused it to soften ; fermen- 
tation then set in, and finally it became as hard 
and brittle as thin glass. His stock of money 
was now exhausted. He was forced to pawn all 
his own valuables and even the trinkets of his 
wife. But he felt sure that he was on the road 
to success and would eventually win both fame 
and fortune. He removed his family to the coun- 
try, and set out for New^ York, where he hoped 
to find someone willing to aid him in carrying 
his experiments further. Here he met two 
acquaintances, one of whom offered him the use 
of a room in Gold Street as a workshop, and the 
other, a druggist, agreed to let him have on 
credit such chemicals as he needed. He now 
boiled the gum, mixed with magnesia, in quick- 
lime and water, and as a result obtained firm, 
smooth sheets that won him a medal at the fair 
of the American Institute in 1835. He seemed 
on the point of success, and easily sold all the 
sheets he could manufacture, when, to his dismay, 



CHARLES GOODYEAR 161 

he discovered that a drop of the weakest acid, 
such as the juice of an apple or diluted vinegar, 
would reduce his new compound to the old 
sticky substance that had baffled him so often. 

His first important discovery on the road to 
real success was the result of accident. He 
liked pretty things, and it was a constant effort 
with him to make his productions as attractive 
to the eye as possible. Upon one occasion, while 
bronzing a piece of rubber cloth, he applied 
aqua fortis to it for the purpose of removing part 
of the bronze. It took away the bronze, but it 
also destroyed the cloth to such a degree that he 
supposed it ruined and threw it away. A day or 
two later, happening to pick it up, he was aston- 
ished to find that the rubber had undergone a re- 
markable change, and that the effect of the acid 
had been to harden it to such an extent that it 
would now stand a degree of heat which would 
have melted it before. Aqua fortis contained 
sulphuric acid. Goodyear was thus on the 
threshold of his great discovery of vulcanizing 
rubber. He called his new process the '' curing " 
of india-rubber. 

The ''cured" india-rubber was subjected to 
many tests and passed through them successfully, 
thus demonstrating its adaptability to many im- 
portant uses. Goodyear readily obtained a pat- 
ent for his process, and a partner with a large 
capital was found ready to aid him. He hired 
the old india-rubber works on Staten Island and 
opened a salesroom in Broadway. He was 
thrown back for six weeks at this important 



162 INVENTORS 

time by an accident which happened to him 
while experimenting with his fabrics and which 
came near causing his death. Just as he was re- 
covering and preparing to begin the manufacture 
of his goods on a large acale the terrible com- 
mercial crisis of 1837 swept over the country, 
and by destroying his partner's fortune at one 
blow, reduced Goodyear to absolute beggary. 
His family had joined him in New York, and he 
was entirely without the means of supporting 
them. As the only resource at hand he decided 
to pawn an article of value — one of the few 
which he possessed — in order to raise money to 
procure one day's supply of provisions. At the 
very door of the pawnbroker's shop he met one 
of his creditors, who kindly asked if he could 
be of any further assistance to him. Weak 
with hunger and overcome by the generosity 
of his friend the poor man burst into tears and 
replied that, as his family was on the point of 
starvation, a loan of $15 would greatly oblige 
him. The money was given him on the spot and 
the necessity for visiting the pawnbroker averted 
for several days longer. Still he was a frequent 
visitor to that person during the year, and one 
by one the relics of his better days disappeared. 
Another friend loaned him $100, which enabled 
him to remove his family to Staten Island, in the 
neighborhood of the abandoned rubber works, 
which the owners gave him permission to use 
so far as he could. He contrived in this way to 
manufacture enough of his " cured " cloth, which 
sold readily, to enable him to keep his family 



CHARLES GOODYEAR 163 

from starvation. He made repeated efforts to 
induce capitalists to come to the factory and see 
his samples and the process by which they were 
made, but no one would venture near him. 
There had been money enough lost in such ex- 
periments, these acquaintances said, and they 
were determined to risk no more. 

Indeed, in all the broad land there was but one 
man who had the slightest hope of accomplish- 
ing anything with india-rubber, and that one 
was Charles Goodyear. His friends regarded 
him as a monomaniac. He not only manufactured 
his cloth, but even dressed in clothes made of it, 
wearing it for the purpose of testing its dura- 
bility, as well as of advertising it. He was cer- 
tainly an odd figure, and in his appearance justi- 
fied the remark of one of his friends, who, upon 
being asked how Mr. Goodyear could be recog- 
nized, replied: *' If you see a man with an india- 
rubber coat on, india-rubber shoes, and india- 
rubber cap, and in his pocket an india-rubber 
purse with not a cent in it, that is Goodyear." 

In September, 1837, a new gleam of hope lit 
up his pathway. A friend having loaned him a 
small sum of money he went to Roxbury, taking 
with him some of his best specimens. Although 
the Roxbury Company had gone down with a 
fearful crash, Mr. Chaffee, the inventor of the 
first process of making rubber goods in this 
country, was still firm in his faith that india-rub- 
ber would at some future time justify the ex- 
pectations of its earliest friends. He welcomed 
Goodyear cordially and allowed him to use the 



164 



INVENTORS 



abandoned works of the company for his experi- 
ments. The result was that Goodyear succeeded 
in making shoes and cloths of india-rubber of a 
quality so much better than any that had yet 
been seen in America that the hopes of the 
friends of india-rubber were raised to a high 
point. Offers to purchase rights for certain por- 
tions of the country came in rapidly, and by the 




Calenders Heated Internally by Steann, for Spreading India Rubber into Sneets or 
upon Cloth, called the "Chaffee Machine." 



sale of them Good3^ear realized between four 
and five thousand dollars. He was now able to 
bring his family to Roxbury, and for the time 
fortune seemed to smile upon him. 

His success was but temporary, however. He 
obtained an order from the general Government 
for one hundred and fifty india-rubber mail-bags, 
which he succeeded in producing, and as they 
came out smooth, highly polished, hard, well 
shaped, and entirely impervious to moisture, he 



CUARLES GOODYEAR 165 

was delighted and summoned his friends to in- 
spect and admire them. All who saw them pro- 
nounced them a perfect success, but alas ! in a 
single month they began to soften and ferment, 
and finally became useless. Poor Goodyear's 
hopes were dashed to the ground. It was found 
that the aqua fortis merely "cured" the surface 
of the material, and that only very thin cloth 
made in this way was durable. His other goods 
began to prove worthless and his promising 
business came to a sudden and disastrous end. 
All his possessions were seized and sold for debt, 
and once more he was reduced to poverty. His 
position was even worse than before, for his 
family had increased in size and his aged father 
also had become dependent upon him for sup- 
port. 

Friends, relatives, and even his wife, all de- 
manded that he should abandon his empty 
dreams and turn his attention to something that 
would yield a support to his family. Four years 
of constant failure, added to the unfortunate ex- 
perience of those who had preceded him, ought 
to convince him, they said, that he was hoping 
against hope. Hitherto his conduct, certainly 
had been absurd, though they admitted that he 
was to some extent excused for it by his partial 
success ; but to persist in it would be criminal. 
The inventor was driven to despair, and being a 
man of tender feelings and ardently devoted to 
his family, might have yielded to them had he 
not felt that he was nearer than ever to the dis- 
covery of the secret that had eluded him so long. 



166 INVENTORS 

Just before the failure of his mail-bags had 
brought ruin upon him, he had taken into his 
employ a man named Nathaniel Hayward, who 
had been the foreman of the old Roxbury works, 
and who was still in charge of them when Good- 
year came to Roxbury, and was making a few 
rubber articles on his own account. He hard- 
ened his compound by mixing a little powdered 
sulphur with the gum, or by sprinkling sulphur 
over the rubber cloth and drying it in the sun. 
He declared that the process had been revealed 
to him in a dream, but could give no further ac- 
count of it. Goodyear was astonished to find 
that the sulphur cured the india-rubber as thor- 
oughl}^ as the aqua fortis, the principal objection 
being that the sulphurous odor of the goods was 
frightful in hot weather. Hayward's process 
was really the same as that employed by Good- 
year, the "curing" of the india-rubber being 
due in each case to the agency of the sulphur, 
the principal difference between them being that 
Hayward's goods were dried by the sun and 
Goodyear's with nitric acid. Hayward set so 
small a value upon his discovery that he readily 
sold it to his new employer. 

Goodyear felt that he had now all but con- 
quered his difficulties. It was plain that sulphur 
was the great controller of india-rubber, for he 
had proved that when applied to thin cloth it 
would render it available for most purposes. The 
problem that now remained was how to mix sul- 
phur and the gum in a mass, so that every part 
of the rubber should be subjected to the agency 



CHARLES GOODYEAR 167 

of the sulphur. He experimented for weeks and 
months with the most intense eagerness, but the 
mystery completely baffled him. His friends 
urged him to go to work to do something for 
his family, but he could not turn back. The 
goal Avas almost in sight, and he felt that he 
would be false to his mission were he to abandon 
his labors now. To the world he seemed a crack- 
brained dreamer, and some there were who, see- 
ing the distress of his family, did not hesitate to 
apply still harsher names to him. Had it been 
merely wealth that he was working for, doubt- 
less he would have turned back and sought some 
other means of obtaining it; but he sought more. 
He felt that he had a mission to fulfil, and that 
no one else could perform it. 

He was right. A still greater success was 
about to crown his labors, but in a manner far 
different from his expectations. His experiments 
had developed nothing ; chance was to make the 
revelation. It was in the spring of 1839, ^^*^ ^"^ 
the following manner : Standing before a stove 
in a store at Woburn, Mass., he was explaining 
to some acquaintances the properties of a piece 
of sulphur-cured india-rubber which he held in 
his hand. They listened to him good-naturedly, 
but with evident incredulity, when suddenly he 
dropped the rubber on the stove, which was red 
hot. His old clothes would have melted instantly 
from contact with such heat ; but, to his surprise, 
this piece underwent no such change. In amaze- 
ment he examined it, and found that while it had 
charred or shrivelled like leather, it had not soft- 



168 INVENTORS 

ened at all. The bystanders attached no impor- 
tance to this phenomenon, but to him it was a 
revelation. He renewed his experiments with 
enthusiasm, and in a little while established the 
facts that india-rubber, when mixed with sulphur 
and exposed to a certain degree of heat for a 
specified time, would not melt or soften at any 
degree of heat ; that it would only char at two 
hundred and eighty degrees, and that it would 
not stiffen from exposure to any extent of cold. 
The difficulty now consisted in finding out the 
exact degree of heat necessary for the perfecting 
of the rubber and the exact length of time re- 
quired for the heating. 

He made this discovery in his darkest days, 
when, in fact, he was in constant danger of arrest 
for debt, having already been a frequent inmate 
of the debtors' prison. He was in the depths of 
bitter poverty and in such feeble health that he 
was constantly haunted by the fear of dying be- 
fore he had perfected his discovery — before he 
had fulfilled his mission. He needed an appara- 
tus for producing a high and uniform heat for his 
experiments, and he was unable to obtain it. He 
used to bake his compound in his wife's bread- 
oven and steam it over the spout of her tea- 
kettle, and to press the kitchen fire into his ser- 
vice so far as it would go. When this failed, he 
would go down to the shops in the vicinity of 
Woburn and beg to be allowed to use the ovens 
and boilers after working hours were over. The 
workmen regarded him as a lunatic, but were too 
good-natured to deny him the request. Finally 



I ' I 




o -a 
(3 V 



m O 



O 



170 INVENTORS 

he induced a bricklayer to make him an oven, 
and paid him in masons' aprons of india-rubber. 
The oven was a failure. Sometimes it would 
turn out pieces of perfectly vulcanized cloth, 
and again the goods would be charred and 
ruined. Goodyear was in despair. 

All this time he lived on the charity of his 
friends. His neighbors pretended to lend him 
money, but in reality gave him the means of 
keeping his family from starvation. He has de- 
clared that all the while he felt sure he would, 
before long, be able to pay them back, but they 
have declared with equal emphasis that, at that 
time, they never expected to witness his success. 
He was yellow and shrivelled in face, with a 
gaunt, lean figure, and his habit of wearing an 
india-rubber coat, which was charred and black- 
ened from his frequent experiments with it, gave 
him a wild and singular appearance. People 
shook their heads solemnly when they saw him, 
and said that the mad-house was the proper place 
for him. 

The winter of 1839-40 was long and severe. 
At the opening of the season Goodyear received 
a letter from a house in Paris, making him a hand- 
some offer for the use of his process of curing 
india - rubber with aqua fortis. Here was a 
chance for him to rise out of his misery. A 
year before he would have closed with the offer, 
but since then he had discovered the effects of 
sulphur and heat on his compound, and had 
passed far beyond the aqua-fortis stage. Disap- 
pointment and want had not warped his con- 



CHARLES GOODYEAR 171 

science, and he at once declined to enter into any 
arrangements with the French house, informing 
them that although the process they desired to 
purchase was a valuable one, it was about to be 
entirely replaced by another which he was then 
on the point of perfecting, and which he would 
gladly sell them as soon as he had completed it. 
His friends declared that he was mad to refuse 
such an offer ; but he replied that nothing would 
induce him to sell a process which he knew was 
about to be rendered worthless by still greater 
discoveries. 

A few weeks later a terrible snow-storm passed 
over the land, one of the worst that New Eng- 
land had ever known, and in the midst of it 
Goodyear made the appalling discovery that he 
had not a particle of fuel or a mouthful of food 
in the house. He was ill enough to be in bed 
himself, and his purse was entirely empty. It 
was a terrible position, made worse, too, by the 
fact that his friends who had formerly aided him 
had turned from him, vexed with his pertinacity, 
and abandoned him to his fate. In his despair 
he bethought him of a mere acquaintance named 
Coleridge, who lived several miles from his cot- 
tage, and who but a few days before had spoken to 
him with more of kindness than he had received of 
late. This gentleman, he thought, would aid him 
in his distress, if he could but reach his house, but 
in such a snow the journey seemed hopeless to a 
man in his feeble health. Still the effort must be 
made. Nerved by despair, he set out and pushed 
his way resolutely through the heavy drifts. 



172 INVENTOnS 

The way was long, and it seemed to him that 
he would never accomplish it. Often he fell 
prostrate on the snow, almost fainting with fa- 
tigue and hunger, and again he would sit down 
wearily in the road, feeling that he would gladly 
die if his discovery were but completed. At 
length, however, he reached the end of his jour- 
ney, and fortunately found his acquaintance at 
home. To this gentleman he told the story 
of his discovery, his hopes, his struggles, and 
his present sufferings, and implored him to help 
him. Mr. Coleridge listened to him kindly, and 
after expressing the warmest sympathy for him, 
loaned him money enough to support his family 
during the severe weather and to enable him to 
continue his experiments. 

Seeing no prospect of success in Massachu- 
setts, he now resolved to make a desperate effort 
to get to New York, feeling confident that the 
specimens he could take with him would con- 
vince someone of the superiority of his new 
method. He was beginning to understand the 
cause of his many failures, but he saw clearly 
that his compound could not be worked Avith 
certainty without expensive apparatus. It was 
a very delicate operation, requiring exactness 
and promptitude. The conditions upon which 
success depended were many, and the failure of 
one spoiled all. It cost him thousands of fail- 
ures to learn that a little acid in his sulphur 
.caused the blistering ; that his compound must 
be heated almost immediately after being mixed 
or it would never vulcanize ; that a portion of 



GHARLES GOODYEAR 



173 



white lead in the compound greatly facilitated 
the operation and improved the result ; and when 
he had learned these facts, it still required costly 
and laborious experiments to devise the best 
methods of compounding his ingredients in the 
best proportions, the best mode of heating, the 
proper duration of the heating, and the various 
useful effects that could be produced by varying 



COUNCIL MEDAL OF THE EXHiBITIOISr. 

C GOODVEAa CLASS XXVlTl' 




1851, 



the proportions and the degree of heat. He 
tells us that many times when, by exhausting 
every resource, he had prepared a quantity of 
his compound for heating, it was spoiled because 
he could not, with his inadequate apparatus, 
apply the heat soon enough. 

To New York, then, he directed his thoughts. 
Merely to get there cost him a severer and a 
longer effort than men in general are capable of 
making. First he walked to Boston, ten miles 



174 INVENTORS 

distant, where he hoped to borrow from an old 
acquaintance $50, with which to provide for 
his family and pay his fare to New York. He 
not only failed in this, but he was arrested for 
debt and thrown into prison. Even in prison, 
while his old father was negotiating to procure 
his release, he labored to interest men of capital 
in his discovery, and made proposals for found- 
ing a factory in Boston. Having obtained his 
liberty, he went to a hotel and spent a week in 
vain efforts to effect a small loan. Saturday 
night came, and with it his hotel bill, which he 
had no means of discharging. In an agony of 
shame and anxiety, he went to a friend and en- 
treated the sum of $5 to enable him to return 
home. He was met with a point-blank refusal. 
In the deepest dejection, he walked the streets 
till late in the night, and strayed at length, 
almost beside himself, to Cambridge, where he 
ventured to call upon a friend and ask shelter 
for the night. He was hospitably entertained, 
and the next morning walked wearily home, 
penniless and despairing. At the door of his 
house a member of his family met him Avith the 
news that his youngest child, two years old, 
whom he had left in perfect health, was dying. 
In a few hours he had in his house a dead 
child, but not the means of burying it, and five 
living dependents without a morsel of food to 
give them. A storekeeper near by had prom- 
ised to supply the family, but, discouraged by 
the unforeseen length of the father's absence, he 
had that day refused to trust them further. In 



CHARLES GOODYEAR 175 

these terrible circumstances he applied to a 
friend, upon whose generosity he knew he could 
rely, one who never failed him. He received in 
reply a letter of severe and cutting- reproach, 
enclosing $7, which his friend explained was 
given only out of pity for his innocent and suf- 
ering family. A stranger who chanced to be 
present when this letter arrived sent them a bar- 
rel of flour, a timely and blessed relief. The 
next day the family followed on foot the remains 
of the little child to the grave.' 

This was about the darkest hour of poor Good- 
year's life, but it was before the dawn. He man- 
aged to obtain $50, with which he went to 
New York, and succeeded in interesting two 
brothers, William and Emory Rider, in his dis- 
coveries. They agreed to advance to him a 
certain sum to complete his experiments. By 
means of this aid he was enabled to keep his 
family from want, and his experiments were pur- 
sued with greater ease and certainty. His 
brother-in-law, William De Forrest, a rich wool 
manufacturer, also came to his aid, now that 
success seemed in view. Nevertheless, the ex- 
periments of that and the following year cost 
nearly $50,000. Thanks to this timely aid, he 
was able in 1844, ten years after beginning his 
work, to produce perfect vulcanized india-rub- 
ber with economy and certainty. To the end of 
his life he was at work, however, endeavoring 
to improve the material and apply it to new uses. 
He took out more than sixty patents cover- 
ing different processes of making rubber goods. 



17G 



INVENTORS 



If Goodyear had been a man of business in- 
stincts and habits, the years following the comple- 
tion of his great work might have brought him 
an immense fortune ; but everywhere he seems 
to have been unfortunate in protecting his rights. 
In France and England he lost his patent rights 
by technical defects. In the latter country an- 
other man, who had received a copy of the 

CBANDE MEDAILLE D'HONNEUR. 

EXPOSITION VJNIVERSELLE DE 1855. 




Donne pour la Decouverle de la VulwirsatUn e^ Oura'ssement du CaouJcKouc 
TAC-SIMILE GOLD. 



American patent, actually applied and obtained 
the English rights in his own name. Goodyear, 
however, obtained the great council medal at 
the London Exhibition of 1851, a grand medal at 
Paris, in 1855, and later the ribbon of the Legion 
of Honor. In this country he was scarcely less 
unfortunate. His patents were infringed right 
and left, he was cheated by business associates 
and plundered of the profits of his invention. 
The United States Commissioner of Patents, in 
1858, thus spoke of his losses: 



CHARLES GOODYEAR 177 

" No inventor, probably, has ever been so 
harassed, so trampled upon, so plundered by 
that sordid and licentious class of infringers 
known in the parlance of the world as ' pirates.' 
The spoliation of their incessant guerilla war- 
fare upon his defenceless rights has unquestion- 
ably amounted to millions." 

Goodyear died in New York in July, i860, 
worn out with work and disappointment. Nei- 
ther Europe nor America seemed disposed to 
accord him any reward or credit for having 
made one of the greatest discoveries of the time. 
Notwithstanding his invention, which has made 
millions for those engaged in working it, he died 
insolvent, and left his family heavily in debt. A 
few years after his death an effort was made to 
procure from Congress an extension of his pat- 
ent for the benefit of his family and creditors. 
The opposition of the men who had grown rich 
and powerful by successfully infringing his 
rights prevented that august body from doing 
justice in the matter and the effort came to 
nothing. 



VII. 
JOHN ERICSSON. 

Captain John Ericsson, although not by 
birth an American, rendered such signal services 
to this country and lived here for so many years 
that we may fairly consider him in the light of 
an American inventor. The inventions to which 
he devoted the best years of his life were made 
in this country. He loved America, he died 
here, and though his ashes have been sent back 
to Sweden, the world of Europe, in common 
with ourselves, probably thinks of Ericsson as 
an American. 

By the roadside near a mountain hamlet of 
Central Sweden stands a pyramid of iron cast 
from ore dug from the adjacent mines and set 
upon a base of granite quarried from the hills 
which overlook the valley. This monument bears 
the information that two brothers, Nils Erics- 
son and John Ericsson, were born in a miner's 
hut at that place, respectively, January 31, 1802, 
and July 31, 1803. Nils Ericsson was a man of 
unusual distinction, who held high position in 
Sweden as engineer of the canals and railroads 
of the kingdom. The name of his brother is 
known the world over. These two notable 
Swedes were sons of Olof Ericsson, a Swedish 







Jonn Ericsson. 



JOHN ERICSSON 179 

miner. Poverty was one of the bits of good 
fortune that fell to the lot of the two boys, and 
among John's earliest recollections is that of the 
seizure of their household effects by the sheriff. 
The mother was a woman of intelligence and 
somewhat acquainted with the literature of her 
time. In boyhood John Ericsson worked in the 
iron mines of Central Sweden. Machinery was 
his first love and his last. Before he was eleven 
years old, during the winter of,i8i3, he had pro- 
duced a miniature saw-mill of ingenious con- 
struction, and had planned a pumping-engine 
designed to keep the mines free from water. 
The frame of the saw -mill was of wood; the 
saw-blade was made from a watch-spring and 
was moved by a crank made from a broken tin 
spoon. A file, borrowed from a neighboring 
blacksmith, a gimlet, and a jack-knife were the 
only tools used in this work. His pumping-en- 
gine was a more ambitious affair, to be operated 
by a wind-mill. 

The family then lived in the wilderness, sur- 
rounded by a pine forest, where Ericsson's father 
was engaged in selecting timber for the lock- 
gates of a canal. A quill and a pencil were the 
boy's tools in the way of drawing materials. He 
made compasses of birch wood. A pair of steel 
tweezers were converted into a drawing-pen. 
Ericsson had never seen a wind-mill, but follow- 
ing as well as he could the description of those 
who had, he succeeded in constructing on paper 
the mechanism connecting the crank of a wind- 
mill with the pump-lever. The plan, conceived 




%':' 



4- 



JOHN ERICSSON 181 

and executed under such circumstances by a 
mere boy, attracted the attention of Count 
Platen, president of the Gotha Ship Canal, on 
which Ericsson's father was employed, and when 
Ericsson was twelve years old he was made 
a member of the surveying party carrying out 
the canal work and put in charge of a section„ 
Six hundred of the royal troops looked for direc= 
tions in their daily Avork to this boy, one of his 
attendants being a man who followed him with 
a stool, upon which he stood to use the survey- 
ing instruments. The amusements of this boy 
engineer, even at the age of fifteen, are indicated 
by a portfolio of drawings made in his leisure 
moments, giving maps of the most important 
parts of the canal, three hundred miles in length, 
and showing all the machinery used in its con- 
struction. His precocity was, however, the nor- 
mal and healthy development of a mind as fond 
of mechanical principles as Raphael was of color. 
It was in 1811 that Ericsson made his first 
scale drawing of the famous Sunderland Iron 
Bridge, and from that time on his career in 
Sweden was a brilliant one. After serving as an 
engineer upon the Gotha Canal he became an 
officer in the Swedish army, from which circum- 
stance he got his title of captain. Most govern- 
ment work was then done by army officers, espe- 
cially in field surveying. The appointments of 
government surveyors being offered soon after- 
ward to competitive examination among the offi- 
cers of the army, Ericsson went to Stockholm 
and entered the lists. Detailed maps of fifty 



182 INVENTORS 

square miles of Swedish territory, still upon file at 
Stockholm, show his skill. Though his work as 
a surveyor exceeded that of any of his compan- 
ions, he was not satisfied. He sought an outlet 
for his superfluous activity in preparing the draw- 
ings and engraving sixty-four large plates for a 
work illustrating the Gotha Canal. His faculty 
for invention was shown here by the construc- 
tion of a machine-engraver, with which eighteen 
copper-plates were completed by his own hand 
within a year. 

From engraving young Ericsson turned his 
attention to experiments with flame as a means 
of producing mechanical power, and it is inter- 
esting to note that forty years afterward a large 
part of his income in this country was derived 
from his gas- or flame-engine, thousands of which 
are now in use in New York City alone for 
pumping water up to the tops of the houses. 
His early flame-engine, as it was called, turned 
out so well that after building one of ten horse- 
power, he obtained leave of absence to go to 
England to introduce the invention. He never 
returned to Sweden for any length of time, 
although he remained a Swede at heart, and 
many Swedish orders and decorations have been 
conferred upon "him. In addition to the monu- 
ment near Ericsson's birthplace, already men- 
tioned, the government has erected a granite 
shaft, eighteen feet high, in front of the cot- 
tage in which lie was born. This shaft, bearing 
the inscription, *' John Ericsson was born here 
in 1803," was dedicated on September 3, 1867, 



JOHN ERICSSON' 183 

when work was suspended in the neighboring 
mines and iron furnaces, and a holiday was held 
in honor of Sweden's famous son. Poems were 
read, the chief engineer of the mining district 
delivered an oration, and Dr. Pallin, a savant 
from Philipstad, reminded his hearers that seven 
cities in Greece contended for the honor of be- 
ing Homer's birthplace. '' Certificates of bap- 
tism did not then exist," said Dr. Pallin, '' and 
there is no doubt with us as to Ericsson's birth- 
place ; yet to guard against all accidents we 
have here placed a record of baptism weigh- 
ing eighty thousand pounds." The monument 
stands on an isthmus between two lakes sur- 
rounded by green hills. 

Ericsson's life in Ens^land besfan in 1826. For- 
tune did not smile upon his efforts to introduce 
his flame -engine, for the coal fire which had 
to be used in England was too severe for the 
working parts of the apparatus. But Ericsson 
possessed a capacity for hard work that recog- 
nized no obstacles. He undertook a new series 
of experiments which resulted finally in the com- 
pletion of an engine which was patented and 
sold to John Braithwaite. Young Ericsson's ca- 
pacity for work and for keeping half a dozen ex- 
periments in view at the same time seems to have 
been as remarkable in those early days as when 
he became famous. Records of the London 
Patent Office credit him with invention after 
invention. Among these were a pumping-engine 
on a new principle ; engines with surface con- 
densers and no smoke-stack, as applied to the 



JOHN ERICSSON 185 

Steamship Victory in 1828; an apparatus for 
making salt from brine ; for propelling boats 
on canals ; a hydrostatic weighing machine, to 
which the Society of Arts awarded a prize ; an 
instrument to be used in taking deep-sea sound- 
ings ; a file-cutting machine. The list covers 
some fourteen patented inventions and forty ma- 
chines. 

Perhaps his most important work at this pe- 
riod was a device for creating artificial draught 
in locomotives, to which aid the development of 
our railroad owes much. In 1829 the Liverpool 
& Manchester Railroad offered a prize of $2,500 
for the best locomotive capable of doing cer- 
tain work. The prize was taken by Stephenson 
with his famous Rocket ; but his sharpest com- 
petitor in this contest was John Ericsson. Four 
locomotives entered the contest. The London 
Times of October 8, 1829, speaks highly of the 
Novelty, the locomotive entered by Messrs. 
Braithwaite & Ericsson, saying : " It was the 
lightest and most elegant carriage on the road 
yesterday, and the velocity with which it moved 
surprised and amazed every beholder. It shot 
along the line at the amazing rate of thirty miles 
an hour. It seemed indeed to fly, presenting 
one of the most sublime spectacles of human 
ingenuity and human daring the world ever 
beheld." 

The railroad directors, at whose invitation this 
test was made, had asked for ten miles an hour ; 
Ericsson gave them thirty. The excitement of 
the witnesses found vent in loud cheers. Within 



186 



INVENTORS 



an hour the shares of the railroad company rose 
ten per cent., and the young engineer might well 
have considered his fortune made. But although 



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Ericsson on his Arrival in England, aged twenty-three. 

he had beaten his rival ten miles an hour, the 
judges determined to make traction power, 
rather than speed, the critical test, and the prize 
was awarded to Stephenson's Rocket, which 



JOHN ERICSSON 



187 



drew seventeen tons for seventy miles at the rate 
of thirteen miles an hour. Stephenson's engine 
weighed twice as much as Ericsson's. Neverthe- 





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Mrs. John Ericsson, nee Amelia Byam. 
(From an early daguerreotype.) 

less Ericsson's success with the Novelty was 
such as to keep him busy in this particular field. 
He followed it up with a steam fire-engine that 
astonished London at the burning of the Argyle 



188 INVENTORS 

Rooms, in 1829, when for the first time, as one 
of the local papers remarked, '' fire was ex- 
tinguished by the mechanical power of fire." 
Another engine, of larger power, built for the 
King of Prussia, soon after rendered excellent 
service in Berlin, and a third was built for Liv- 
erpool in 1830. Ten years afterward the Me- 
chanics' Institute of New York awarded a gold 
medal to Ericsson as a prize for the best plan of 
a steam-engine. 

Disappointed in his ill success with inven- 
tions pertaining to locomotives, Ericsson now 
turned his attention to his early flame-engine, 
and the working model of a caloric engine of 
five-horse power soon attracted the attention of 
London. At first there seemed to be a great 
future for engines upon this principle, but after 
many years of experiments, at great expense, 
Ericsson found that the principle was useful only 
for purposes requiring small power. In 185 1 he 
built a heat-engine for the ship Ericsson, a vessel 
two hundred and sixty feet in length, and tells 
the result as follows : " The ship after comple- 
tion made a successful trip from New York to 
Washington and back during the winter season ; 
but the average speed at sea proving insufficient 
for commercial purposes, the owners, with re- 
gret, acceded to my proposition to remove the 
costly machinery, although it had proved perfect 
as a mechanical combination. The resources of 
modern engineering having been exhausted in 
producing the motors of the caloric ship, the im- 
portant question, Can heated air, as a mechan- 




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190 INVENTORS 

ical motor, compete on a large scale with steam ? 
has forever been set at rest. The commercial 
world is indebted to American enterprise for 
having settled a question of such vital impor- 
tance. The marine engineer has thus been en- 
couraged to renew his efforts to perfect the 
steam-engine without fear of rivalry from a mo- 
tor depending on the dilation of atmospheric air 
by heat." 

Before leaving this question of heat-engines 
and passing to the more important inventions by 
which Ericsson will be remembered, it may be 
as well to say a few words concerning the solar- 
engines to which he devoted many years' time, 
and one of which I saw in operation in the back 
yard of the pleasant old house in Beach Street, 
opposite the freight depot of the Hudson River 
Railroad. This house, by the way, which Erics- 
son occupied for nearly forty years, faced on St. 
John's Park, the pleasant square which was after- 
ward filled up by the railroad company. Tow- 
ard the last years of Ericsson's life the neigh- 
borhood became anything but a pleasant one to 
live in ; it was dirty and noisy. Nevertheless 
Ericsson refused to move. Perhaps the unpleas- 
antness of the surroundings made him the recluse 
he was. It is not surprising that he should have 
been attracted by the possibility of obtaining 
power from the heat of the sun. In an early 
pamphlet on the subject he says: "There is a 
rainless region extending from the northwestern 
coast of Africa to Mongolia, nine thousand miles 
in length and nearly one thousand miles wide. 



JOHN ERICSSON 



191 



In the Western Hemisphere, Lower California, 
the table-lands of Guatemala, and the west coast 
of South America, for a distance of more than two 
thousand miles, suffer from a continuous radiant 




Solar-engine Adapted to the Use of Hot Air. 
(Patented as a pumping-engine, i88o.) 

heat." Ericsson estimated that the mechanical 
power that would result from utilizing the solar 
heat on a strip of land a single mile wide and 
eight thousand miles long would suffice to keep 
twenty-two million solar-engines, of one hundred 



192 INVENTORS 

horse-power each, going nine hours a day. He 
believed that with the exhaustion of European 
coal-fields the day for the solar-engine would 
come, and that those countries which possessed 
unfailing sunshine, such as Egypt, would displace 
England, France, and Germany as the manufact- 
uring powers of the world, for the European 
would have to move his machinery to the bor- 
ders of the Nile. By concentrating the rays of 
the sun upon a small copper boiler filled with 
air Ericsson was enabled to work a little motor, 
and for some years he also attempted to produce 
steam by means of heat from the sun. He was 
not successful, however, in making anything of 
commercial value in this direction, and so far as 
I have been able to learn none of the tropical 
countries invited by him to take up the problem 
for its own benefit responded to the invitation. 

Ericsson's studies and improvements of the 
screw as a means of propelling boats began in 
England. A model boat, two feet long, fitted 
up with two screws, was launched in a London 
bath-house, and, supplied by steam from a boiler 
placed at the side of the tank, was sent around 
at a speed estimated at six miles an hour. Erics- 
son was so delighted with it that he built a boat 
eight feet by forty, armed with two propellers, 
in the hope that the British Admiralty might 
adopt the invention. This boat went through 
the water at the rate of ten miles an hour, or 
seven miles an hour towing a schooner of one 
hundred and forty tons burden. He invited the 
Admiralty to see the work of his screw. Steam- 



JOHN ERICSSON 193 

ing up to Somerset House with his little ves- 
sel, Ericsson took the Admiralty barge in tow, to 
the wonder of the watermen, who could make 
nothing of the novel craft with no apparent 
means of propulsion. The British Admiralty, 
however, was not easily convinced. These wise- 
acres said nothing, but Ericsson professed to 
have heard that their verdict was against him 
because one of the authorities of the board de- 
cided that " even if the propeller had the power 
of propelling a vessel it would be found alto- 
gether useless in practice, because the power, 
being applied to the stern, it would be abso- 
lutely impossible to make the vessel steer." 

This official blindness cost England the ser- 
vices of the inventor. The United States hap- 
pened to have as consul in Liverpool at that day 
(1837) Mr. Francis B. Ogden, a pioneer in steam 
navigation on the Ohio River. Ogden saw 
Ericsson's invention and introduced him to Cap- 
tain Robert F. Stockton, of the United States 
Navy. With Stockton, seeing was believing, and 
when he returned from a trip on Ericsson's boat, 
he exclaimed : '' I do not want the opinion of 
your scientific men. What I have seen to-day 
satisfies me." Before the vessel had completed 
her trip, Ericsson received from Stockton an 
order for two boats. Upon Stockton's assur- 
ance that the United States would try his pro- 
peller upon a large scale, Ericsson closed up his 
affairs in England and embarked for the United 
States. Through the good offices of Stockton, 
but after considerable delay, a vessel called the 
13 



194 INVENTORS 

Princeton was ordered and completed. She 
carried a number of radical improvements des- 
tined to make a revolution in naval warfare. 
The boilers and engines were below the water- 
line, out of the way of shot and shell. The 
smoke-stack was a telescopic affair, replacing 
the tall pipe that formed so conspicuous a target 
upon the old boats. Centrifugal blowers in the 
hold, worked by separate engines, secured in- 
creased draught for the furnaces. The Prince- 
ton was a wonder, and everyone was ready to 
praise the inventive genius of Ericsson and the 
daring of Captain Stockton in adopting so many 
radical novelties. An entry in the diary of John 
Quincy Adams, dated February 28, 1844, tells 
the sad story of the public exhibition of the 
Princeton at Washington : 

" I went into the chamber of the Committee of 
Manufactures and wrote there till six. Dined 
with Mr. Grinnell and Mr. Winthrop. While 
we were at dinner John Barney burst into the 
chamber, rushed up to General Scott and told 
him, with groans, that the President wished to 
see him ; that the great gun on board the Prince- 
ton had burst and killed the Secretary of State, 
Upshur ; the Secretary of the Navy, T. W. Gil- 
mer ; Captain Beverly Kennon, Virgil Maxey, a 
Colonel Gardiner, of New York, a colored ser- 
vant of the President, and desperately wounded 
several of the crew." 

So tragic an introduction was not needed to 
direct public attention to the Princeton. Erics- 
son had placed the United States at the head of 



JOHN ERICSSON 195 

naval powers in the application of steam-power 
to warfare. He had made the experiment of the 
Princeton at a great cost to himself, and two 
years of concentrated effort had been devoted 
to the service of the Government. For his 
time, labor, and necessary expenditures he ren- 
dered a bill of $15,000, leaving the question of 
what, if anything, should be charged for his 
patent rights entirely to the discretion and gen- 
erosity of the Government. The bill was refused 
payment by the Navy Department because of 
its limited discretion. Ericsson went to Con- 
gress with it, but a dozen years passed without 
the slightest progress toward a settlement. A 
court of claims rendered a unanimous decree in 
his favor, but Congress, to which the bill was 
again sent, failed to make an appropriation, and 
there the matter has remained, notwithstanding 
the brilliant services since rendered to this coun- 
try by the inventor. 

Various nations claim the invention of the 
screw as applied to boats. At Triest and at 
Vienna stand statues erected to Joseph Ressel, 
for whom the Austrians lay claim. Commodore 
Stevens, of New Jersey, is also said by Professor 
Thurston to have built and worked a screw-pro- 
peller on the Hudson in 1812. Whatever may 
be the final decision as to Ericsson's claim in 
this matter, there can be no doubt as to the 
value of the services he rendered in building the 
Monitor. The suggestion of the Monitor was 
first made in a communication from Ericsson to 
Napoleon III., dated New York, September, 



196 INVENTORS 

1854. This paper contained a description of an 
iron-clad vessel surmounted by a cupola substan- 
tially as in the Monitor as finally built. The 
emperor, through General Favre, acknowledged 
the communication. Favre wrote : " The em- 
peror has himself examined with the greatest 
care the new system of naval attack which you 
have communicated to him. His Majesty charges 
me with the honor of informing you that he has 
found your ideas very ingenious and worthy of 
the celebrated name of their author." For eight 
years Ericsson continued working upon his idea 
of a revolving cupola or turret upon an iron-clad 
raft, but found no opportunity to test the practi- 
cal value of the device. His time finally came 
when, in 1861, the Navy Department appointed 
a board to examine plans for iron-clads. The 
board consisted of Commodores Joseph Smith, 
Hiram Paulding, and Charles H. Davis. Erics- 
son, having learned to distrust his own powers 
as a business agent, engaged the assistance of C. 
S. Bushnell, a Connecticut man of some wealth, 
who went to Washington and presented the de- 
signs of the Monitor to the board. 

Colonel W. C. Church, Ericsson's biographer, 
who has just been honored by Sweden for his 
publications upon the life of the inventor, tells 
an interesting story of the negotiations concern- 
ing the vessel which was to render such signal 
services to the country. Bushnell could make 
no headway with the board and decided that 
Ericsson's presence in Washington was necessary. 
But the inventor was then, as during his whole 



JOHN ERICSSON 197 

life, averse to any self-advertisement, and pre- 
ferred his workshop to any place on earth. But 
as he possessed a sort of rude eloquence due to 
enthusiasm, Bushnell got him to Washington by 
subterfuge. He was told that the board ap- 
proved his plans for an iron-clad and that it 
would be necessary for him to go to the capital 
and complete the contract. Presenting himself 
before the board, what was his astonishment to 
find that he was not only an unexpected but ap- 
parently an unwelcome visitor. He was not 
long in doubt as to the meaning of this recep- 
tion. To his indignation and astonishment he 
was informed that the plan of a vessel submitted 
by him had already been rejected. His first im- 
pulse was to withdraw at once. Mastering his 
anger, however, he inquired the reason for this 
decision. Commodore Smith explained that the 
vessel had not sufficient stability ; in other words, 
it would be liable to upset. Captain Ericsson 
was too experienced a naval designer to have 
overlooked this point, and in a lucid explanation 
put his views before the board, winding up with 
the declaration : '' Gentlemen, after what I have 
said, I consider it to be your duty to the country 
to give me an order to build the vessel before I 
leave this room." 

Withdrawing to a corner the board held a con- 
sultation and invited the inventor to call again 
at one o'clock. When Ericsson returned he 
brought with him a diagram illustrating more 
fully his reasons for considering his proposed 
vessel to be perfectly stable. Commodore, after- 



198 



INVENTORS 



ward x'\clmiral, Paulding was convinced, and ad- 
mitted that Ericsson had taught him much about 
the stability of vessels. Secretary Welles was 
informed that the board reported favorably upon 
Ericsson's plan, and told the inventor that he 
might return to New York and begin work, as 
the contract would follow him. When the con- 




Sectional View of Monitor through Turret and Pilot-house. 

tract came it was found to be a singularly one- 
sided affair. If the Monitor proved vulnerable 
—in other words, if it was not a success — the 
money paid for it by the Navy Department was 
to be refunded. 

It took one hundred days to build the Monitor. 
During those three months Ericsson scarcely 
slept, and even in his dreams he went over the 
details of the new-fangled war-engine he was 



JOHN ERICSSON 



199 



building-. He named her Monitor because, he 
said, she would warn the 
nations of the world that 
a new era in naval warfare 
had begun. The story of 
his untiring activity has 
been told almost as often 
as that of the battle be- 
tween the Monitor and 
the Merrimac. He was at 
the ship-yard before any 
of the workmen, and was 
':he last to leave. In the 
construction of so novel a 
craft difficulties of a puz- 
zling nature came up every 

day. If Ericsson could not 
solve them on the spot, he 
studied the matter in the 
quiet of the night, and was 
ready with his drawings 
in the morning. The re- 
sult of the naval battle in 
Hampton Roads, on the 
9th of March, 1862, be- 
tween the little Monitor 
and the big Merrimac 
made Ericsson the hero of 
the hour. Had no David 
appeared to stop the rav- 
ages of the Confederate 
Goliath, it is hard to say what might not have 
been the injury inflicted upon the cause of the 



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200 INVENTORS 

Union by the terrible Merrimac. The United 
States Navy was virtually panic-stricken when 
the Monitor, this '' Yankee cheese - box on a 
plank," as the Southerners called her, came to 
the rescue. 

Notwithstanding the tremendous service ren- 
dered the country, Ericsson declined to receive 
more compensation for the Monitor than his con- 
tract called for. In reply to a resolution of the 
New York Chamber of Commerce calling for 
" a suitable return for his services as will evince 
the gratitude of the nation," Ericsson said : " All 
the remuneration I desire for the Monitor I 
get out of the construction of it. It is all-suf- 
ficient." Our grateful nation took him at his 
word. But honors of another and less costly 
kind were showered upon him. Chief Engineer 
Stimers, who was on the Monitor during her 
battle with the Merrimac, wrote to Ericsson: 
" I congratulate you on your great success. 
Thousands have this day blessed you. I have 
heard whole crews cheer you. Every man feels 
that you have saved this place to the nation by 
furnishing us with the means to whip an iron- 
clad frigate that was, until our arrival, having 
it all her own way with our most powerful 
vessels." 

War vessels upon the plan of the Monitor 
speedily appeared among the navies of several 
nations. England refused at first to admit the 
value of the invention and was not converted un- 
til the double-turreted Miantonomoh visited her 
waters in 1866, when one of the London papers 




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202 



INVENTORS 



described her appearance among the British fleet 
as that of a wolf among a flock of sheep. The 
day of the big wooden war-vessels was over. It 
was, nevertheless, an Englishman and a naval of- 




ficer, Captain Cowper Coles, who sought to de- 
prive Ericsson of the honor of his invention. 
Coles declared that he had devised a ship during 
the Crimean war, in which a turret or cupola 
was to protect the guns. Ericsson's letter to 



JOHN ERICSSON 203 

Napoleon III., written in 1854, is sufficient answer 
to this, besides which Ericsson's scheme includes 
more than a stationary shield for the guns, which 
is all that Coles claimed. Coles succeeded, how- 
ever, in inducing the British Admiralty to build 
a vessel according to his plans. This ill-fated 
craft upset off Cape Finisterre on the night of 
September 6, 1870, and went to the bottom with 
Coles and a crew of nearly five hundred men. 

Having devised an apparatus that made 
wooden w^ar-vessels useless, Ericsson turned his 
attention to the destruction of iron-clads, and de- 
voted ten years of his life to the construction of 
his famous torpedo-boat, the Destroyer, upon 
which he spent about all the money he amassed 
by other work. According to his belief, no ves- 
sel afloat could escape annihilation in a battle 
with his Destroyer. This vessel is designed to 
run at sufficient speed to overtake any of the 
iron-clads. It offers small surface to the shot of 
an enemy, and besides being heavily armored, it 
can be partly submerged beneath the waves. 
When within fighting distance it fires under 
water, by compressed air, a projectile containing 
dynamite sufficient to raise a big Avar-ship out of 
the water. The explosion takes place when the 
projectile meets with resistance, such as the sides 
of a ship. To Ericsson's great disappointment, 
the United States Government persistently re- 
fused to purchase the Destroyer or to commis- 
sion Ericsson to build more vessels of her type. 

Of Ericsson's home life there is not much to 
be told. He was utterly wrapped up in his work. 



204 



INVENTORS 



With his devoted secretary, Mr. Arthur Taylor, 
his days knew scarcel}^ any variation. Of social 
recreation he had none. In conversation he was 



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Development of the Monitor Idea. 



abrupt and somewhat peculiar, apparently re- 
garding all other talk than that relating to me- 
chanics and germane subjects as a waste of 
words. His shrewd face, with its blue eyes and 



JOHN ERICSSON 205 

fringe of white hair, was not an unkindly one, 
however, and the few workmen he employed in 
the Beach Street house were devoted to him. 
No great man was ever more intensely averse to 
personal notoriety. Although often advised to 
make his Destroyer better known by means of 
newspaper articles, he persistently refused to see 
newspaper men ; and the professional interviewer 
and lion-hunter were his pet aversions. It was 
perhaps to avoid them that he left his house only 
after nightfall, and then but for a walk in the 
neighborhood. 

His time was divided according to rule. For 
thirty years he was called by his servant at seven 
o'clock in the morning, and took a bath of very 
cold water, ice being added to it in summer. 
After some gymnastic exercises came breakfast 
at nine o'clock, always of eggs, tea, and brown 
bread. His second and last meal of the day, 
dinner, never varied from chops or steak, some 
vegetables, and tea and brown bread again. Ice- 
water was the only luxury that he indulged in. 
He used tobacco in no form. During the day- 
time he was accustomed to work at his desk or 
drawing-table for about ten hours. After dinner 
he resumed work until ten, Avhen he started out 
for the stroll of an hour or more, which always 
ended his day. The last desk work accomplished 
every day was to make a record in his diary, al- 
ways exactly one page long. This diary is in 
Swedish and comprises more than fourteen thou- 
sand pages, thus covering a period of forty years, 
during which he omitted but twenty days, in 1856, 



206 



INVENTORS 



when he had a finger crushed by machinery. He 
scarcely knew what sickness was, and just be- 
fore his death said that he had not missed a meal 
for fifteen years. He was a widower and left no 
children. He died in the Beach Street house, 
after a short illness, on March 8, 1889, and his 
remains were transferred to Sweden with naval 
honors. 




The Room in which Ericsson Worked for More than Twenty Years. 




Cyrus Hall McCormick. 



VIII. 

CYRUS HALL McCORMICK. 

In the course of an argument before the Com- 
missioner of Patents, in 1859, the late Reverdy 
Johnson declared that the McCormick reaper 
was worth $55,000,000 a year to this country, 
an estimate that was not disputed. At about 
the same time the late William H. Seward 
said that " owing- to Mr. McCormick's invention 
the line of civilization moves westward thirty 
miles each year." Already the London Times, 
after ridiculing the McCormick reaper exhibited 
at the London World's Fair of 185 1, as "a cross 
between an Astley (circus) chariot, a wheel- 
barrow, and a fiying-machine," confessed, when 
the reaper had been tested in the fields, that it 
was '' worth to the farmers of England the whole 
cost of this exhibition." Writing of this glorious 
success, Mr. Seward said : '' So the reaper of 
183 1, as improved in 1845, achieved for its in- 
ventor a triumph which all then felt and ac- 
knowledged was not more a personal one than 
it was a national one. It was justly so regarded. 
No general or consul, drawn in a chariot through 
the streets of Rome by order of the Senate, ever 
conferred upon mankind benefits so great as he 
who thus vindicated the genius of our country 



208 INVENTORS 

at the World's Exhibition of Art in the metrop- 
olis of the British empire in 185 1." In 1861, 
though declining to extend the patent for the 
reaper, the Commissioner of Patents, D. P. Hol- 
loway, paid the inventor this remarkable tribute : 
" Cyrus H. McCormick is an inventor whose 
fame, while he is yet living, has spread through 
the world. His genius has done honor to his 
own country, and has been the admiration of 
foreign nations, and he will live in the grateful 
recollection of mankind as long as the reaping- 
machine is employed in gathering the harvest." 
Nevertheless the extension of the patent of 1834, 
which act of justice would have given the invent- 
or an opportunity to obtain an adequate reward 
for his work, was refused upon the extraordinary 
ground that '' the reaper was of too great value 
to the public to be controlled by any individual." 
In other words, the benefit conferred by McCor- 
mick upon the country was too great to be paid 
ior ; therefore no effort should be made to pay 
for it. Finally, the French Academy of Sciences, 
when McCormick was elected to the Institute 
of France — an honor paid but to few Americans 
— mentioned the election as due to '' his having 
done more for the cause of agriculture than any 
other living man." 

It is thus evident that the tremendous service 
done to the civilized world by the invention of the 
McCormick reaper was appreciated years ago. 
Yet it is improbable that the whole value of the 
invention was fully realized. To-day the Mc- 
Cormick works at Chicago turn out yearly, and 



CYRUS HALL McCORMIGK 



209 



have turned out for several years, more than one 
hundred thousand reapers and mowers. At a 
moderate estimate ever}^ McCormick reaper, and 
every reaper founded upon it and containing- 
its essential features, saves the labor of six men 
during the ten harvest days of the year. The 






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Farm where Cyrus H. McCormick was Born and Raised. 



present number of reapers in operation to-day, 
all of them based upon the INIcCormick pat- 
ents, is estimated at about two million, so that, 
counting a man's labor at $1 a day, here is a 
3'early saving of more than $100,000,000. The 
reaper thus stands beside the steam-engine and 
the sewing-machine as one of the most impor- 
tant labor-saving inventions of our time, relieving 
14 



210 INVENTORS 

millions of men from the most arduous drudg- 
ery and increasing the world's wealth by hun- 
dreds of millions of dollars every year. It is 
some satisfaction to know that the inventor of 
the reaper lived to enjoy the fruits of his work. 
A remarkable man in every respect, his in= 
genuity, perseverance, courage under injustice, 
and generosity finally won him not only the 
material rewards that were his by right, but the 
esteem and honor of the civilized world. 

Like Fulton and Morse, Cyrus Hall McCor- 
mick came of Scotch-Irish blood, a race marked 
by fixed purpose, untiring industry in carrying 
out that purpose, a strong sense of moral obliga- 
tion, and an unswerving determination to do 
right by the light of conscience though the heav- 
ens fall. He was born on the 15th of February, 
1809, ^t Walnut Grove, in Rockbridge County, 
Va., and was the eldest of eight children, six of 
whom lived to grow up. His father, Robert 
McCormick, in addition to farming, had work- 
shops of considerable importance on his farm, 
as well as a saw-mill and grist-mill and smelting 
furnaces. In these workshops young Cyrus 
McCormick probably got his first love for me- 
chanical devices. Robert McCormick was an 
inventor of no mean attainment. He devised 
and built a thresher, a hemp-breaker, some mill 
improvements, and in 18 16 he made and tried 
a mechanical reaper. In those days so much of 
the farmer's hard labor was expended in swing- 
ing the scythe that it seems strange we have 
no record of more attempts to make a machine 



GYRUS HALL McCORMICK 211 

do the work. A schoolmaster named Ogle is 
said to have built a reaper in 1822, but, accord- 
ing to his own admission, it would not work. 
Bell, a Scotch minister, also contrived a reaping- 
machine that was tried in 1828. In the course 
of the subsequent patent litigation over the 
reaper the claims of these early inventors were 
made the most of by McCormick's opponents, 
but the courts of last resort invariably settled 
the question in McCormick's favor. 

As a farmer boy, young Cyrus McCormick 
began his day's work in the fields at five o'clock. 
In winter he went to the Old Field School. 
During his boyhood he would watch his fa- 
ther's experiments and disappointments. His 
first attempt in the same direction was the con- 
struction, at the age of fifteen, of a harvesting- 
cradle by which he was enabled to keep up with 
an able-bodied workman. His first patented in- 
vention (183 1) was a plough which threw alternate 
furrows on either side, being thus either a right- 
hand or left-hand plough. This was superseded 
in 1833 by an improved plough, also by McCor- 
mick, called the self-sharpening plough, which 
did excellent work. His father having worked 
long and unsuccessfully at a mechanical reaper, 
it was natural that young McCormick's mind 
should turn over the same problem from time to 
time, and his father's failures did not deter him, 
although Robert McCormick had suffered so 
much in mind and pocket through the impractica- 
bility of his reaper that he warned his son against 
wasting more time and money upon the dream. 



212 



INVENTORS 



One martyr to mechanical progress was enough 
for the McCormick family. But the possibility 
of making a machine do the hard, hot work of 
the harvest-field had a fascination for the young 
man, and the more he studied the discarded 
reaping-machine made by his father in 1816, the 
more firmly he became convinced that while the 




Exterior of the Blacksmith Shop where the First Reaper was Built, 

principle of that device was wrong, the work 
could be done. In those days the development 
of the country really depended upon some bet- 
ter, cheaper way of harvesting. The land was 
fertile, and there was practically no end of it. 
But labor was scarce. 

Cyrus McCormick's plough was a success that 
encouraged him to take hold of the more diffi- 
cult problem of the reaper. He found that some 



CYRUS HALL McCORMICK 213 

device, such as his father's, would cut grain after 
a fashion, provided it was in perfect condition 
and stood up straight ; the moment it became 
matted and tangled and beaten down by wind 
and rain the machine was useless. Other de- 
vices had been arranged whereby a fly-wheel 
armed with sickles slashed off the heads of the 
wheat, leaving the stalks ; but here again such a 
machine would work only when the field was in 
prime condition. He determined that no device 
was of any value which would not cut grain as 
it might happen to stand, stalk and all. After 
months of labor in his father's shop, making 
every part of the machine himself, in both wood 
and iron, as he said, he turned out, in 183 1, the 
first reaper that really cut an average field of 
wheat satisfactorily. Its three great essential 
features were those of the reaper of to-day — a 
vibrating cutting-blade, a reel to bring the grain 
within reach of the blade, a platform to receive 
the falling grain, and a divider to separate the 
grain to be cut from that to be left standing. 
This machine, drawn by horses, was tested in a 
field of six acres of oats, belonging to John Steele, 
within a mile of Walnut Grove. Its work aston- 
ished the neighboring farmers who gathered to 
witness the test. The problem of cutting stand- 
ing grain by machinery had been solved. 

There were, however, certain defects in the 
reaper which caused Cyrus McCormick not to 
put the machine on the market. All the cog- 
wheels were of wood. There was no place upon 
it for either the driver or the raker. The for- 



214 INVENTORS 

mer rode on the near horse and the latter fol- 
lowed on foot, raking the grain from it as best 
he could. But it cut grain fast, and both father 
and son were so impressed by its possibilities as 
foreshadowed in even this crude affair, that for 
the next few years they devoted their time, 
money, and thoughts to it. Robert McCormick 
was as enthusiastic as his son, and he is rightly 
entitled to a share of the honor, for his invention 
of 1816 turned the attention of his son to the 
problem and pointed out the radical errors to be 
avoided. A year after its first trial, with certain 
improvements, the reaper cut fifty acres of wheat 
in so perfect and rapid a manner as to insure its 
practical value beyond all doubt. The self-re- 
straint shown by McCormick in refusing to sell 
machines until he was satisfied with them shows 
the man. The patent was granted in 1834, but 
for six years he kept at work experimenting, 
changing, improving, during the short periods 
of each harvest. In a letter to the Commis- 
sioner of Patents, on file in the Patent Office, 
Mr. McCormick said : '' From the experiment of 
1 83 1 until the harvest of 1840 I did not sell a 
reaper, although during that time I had many 
exhibitions of it, for experience proved to me 
that it was best for the public as well as for my- 
self that no sales were made, as defects presented 
themselves that would render the reaper unprof- 
itable in other hands. Many improvements were 
found necessary, requiring a great deal of thought 
and study. I was sometimes flattered, at other 
times discouraged, and at all times deemed it best 



CYRUS HALL McCORMICK 



215 



not to attempt the sale of machines until satisfied 
that the reaper would succeed." 

About 1835 the McCormicks engaged in a part- 
nership for the smelting of iron ore. The reaper, 
as a business pursuit, was yet in the distance, and 
the new iron industry offered large profits. The 
panic of 1837 swept away these hopes. Cyrus 



^^iM^S^!&i^0^»:'^^Wi^li^^^f^^2y0^. 




Interior of the Blacksmith Shop where the First Reaper was Built. 

sacrificed all he had, even the farm given him by 
his father, to settle his debts, and his scrupulous 
integrity in this matter turned disaster into bless- 
ing, for it compelled him to take up the reaper with 
renewed energy. With the aid of his father and 
of his brothers, William and Leander, he began 
the manufacture of the machine in the primitive 
workshop at Walnut Grove, turning out less than 
fifty machines a year, all of them made under 



216 INVENTORS 

great disadvantages. The sickles were made 
forty miles away, and as there were no railroads 
in those days, the blades, six feet long, had to be 
carried on horseback. Neither was it easy, when 
once the machines were made, to get them to 
market. The first consignment sent to the West- 
ern prairies, in 1844, was taken in wagons from 
Walnut Grove to Scottsville, then down the 
canal to Richmond, Va. ; thence by water to. 
New Orleans, and then up the Mississippi and 
Ohio Rivers to Cincinnati. 

The great West, with its vast prairies, was the 
natural market for the reaper. Upon the small 
farms of the East hand labor might still suffice 
for the harvest; in the West, where the farms 
were enormous and labor scarce, it was out of 
the question. Realizing that while his reaper 
was a luxury in Virginia, it was a necessity in 
Ohio and Illinois, Cyrus McCormick went to- 
Cincinnati in the autumn of 1844 and began 
manufacturing. At the same time he made 
some valuable improvements and obtained a 
second patent. The reaper had become known 
and the inventor rode on horseback through 
Illinois and Wisconsin, obtaining farmers' orders 
for reapers, which he offered to A. C. Brown, 
of Cincinnati, as security for payment, if he 
would use his workshops for manufacturing 
them. McCormick was enabled also to arrange 
with a firm in Brockport, N. Y., to make his 
reapers on a royalty, and this business pro- 
vided the great wheat district of Central New 
York with machines. In 1847 ^^^^d 1848 he ob- 



CYRUS HALL McCOBMICK 



217 



tained still other patents for new features of the 
reaper. 

In 1846 he had already fixed upon Chicago as 
the best centre of operations for the reaper busi- 
ness, and at the close of the year he moved there. 
The next year the sale of the reapers rose to 
seven hundred, and more than doubled in 1849. 











"*iv 



The First Reaper. 

Having associated his two brothers, William S. 
and Leander J., with him, Cyrus McCormick 
found time to devote himself to introducing the 
reaper in the Old World. The American exhibit 
at the London World's Fair of 185 1 was rather a 
small one, redeemed largely by the McCormick 
reaper, which the London Times, as I have already 
said, praised as worth to the farmers of Great 
Britain more than the whole cost of the exhibi- 



218 INVENTORS 

tion. To it was awarded the grand prize, known 
as the council medal. 

The reaper's advance in public favor was as 
steady on the other side of the water as here, and 
medals and honors were awarded McCormick at 
many important exhibitions. During the Paris 
Exposition of 1867 McCormick superintended 
the work of his reapers at a field trial held by the 
exposition authorities, and so conclusively de- 
feated all competitors that Napoleon III., who 
walked after the reapers, expressed his deter- 
mination to confer upon the inventor, then and 
there, the Cross of the Legion of Honor. At 
the French Exposition of 1878 the McCormick 
wire-binder won the grand prize. From 1850 
the success of the reaper was assured. Mr. Mc- 
Cormick might have rested content with what 
had been achieved, but it was not his nature. 
He not only continued to bear upon his shoul- 
ders the larger share of responsibility of the rap- 
idly growing business, but he labored persistent- 
ly to add to the effectiveness of his invention. 

The great fire that swept Chicago in 1871 left 
nothing of the already important works estab- 
lished by Mr. McCormick. But, as might be 
expected from such a man, he was a tower of 
strength to the city in her time of distress, and 
one of those to rally first from the blow and to 
inspire hope. Within a year, assisted by his 
brother Leander, he had raised from the ashes an 
immense establishment, which with the growth 
of the last few years now covers forty acres of 
ground. More than 2,000 men are here em- 



GYRUS HALL McGORMICK 219 

ployed. The statistics for last year show that 
more than 20,000 tons of special bar-iron and steel, 
2,800 tons of sheet steel, and 26,000 tons of cast- 
ings were used in making the 142,000 machines 
sold. Ten million feet of lumber were used, 
chiefly in boxing and crating, as very little wood 
is now used in the reaper. 

This is a marvellous development from the 
little Virginia shop of 1840, with its output of 
one machine a week, and the growth means far 
more for the country at large than might be 
inferred from these figures ; the farmers of the 
world owe more to the McCormick reaper than 
they can repay. The whir of the American 
reaper is heard around the world. In Egypt, 
Russia, - India, Australia the machine is help- 
ing man with more than a giant's strength. Re- 
cent American travellers through Persia have 
described the singular effect produced upon 
them by seeing the McCormick reaper doing 
its steady work in the fields over which Ha- 
roun Al Raschid may have roamed. And this 
wonderful machine is followed with awe by the 
more ignorant of the natives, who look upon its 
achievements as little short of magical. They 
are not far wrong, however, for it is more amaz- 
ing than any wonder described in tneir ''Arabian 
Nights." 

The last years of Cyrus H. McCormick's life 
were such as have fallen to few of the world's 
benefactors, for as a rule the pioneer who shows 
the road has a hard time of it, even unto the 
end. Mr. McCormick had the satisfaction of 



220 INVENTORS 

knowing not only that by his invention he had 
conferred a blessing upon the workmen of the 
world, but that the world had acknowledged the 
debt. Material prosperity, howev^er, was not 
considered any reason for luxurious idleness. 
To the close of his life Mr. McCormick con- 
tinued to supervise the business of his firm and 
to make the reaper more perfect. No great ex- 
hibition abroad or in this country passed without 
some of its honors falling to the share of the 
McCormick reaper. 

The private life of Cyrus H. McCormick was 
a happy one, and to this may be attributed no 
small share of the elasticity and courage that 
recognized no defeat as final. Congress failed 
to do him justice ; his business was attacked by 
hordes of rivals ; it was interrupted by the fire of 
1 87 1 and afterward threatened by labor strikes 
incited by self-seeking demagogues. Hard work 
was the rule of his life and not the exception. 
But that his nature remained sweet and just is 
shown by his untiring work upon behalf of oth- 
ers. His home life, as I have just remarked, 
was unusually blessed. In 1858 he married Miss 
Nettie Fowler, a daughter of Melzar Fowler, of 
Jefferson County, New York. Of the seven chil- 
dren born of this marriage, five lived to grow up, 
his son, Cyrus H. McCormick, now occupying 
his father's place at the head of the great works 
in Chicago. One of the daughters, Anita, is the 
widow of Emmons Blaine. The inventor of the 
reaping-machine died on the 13th of May, 1884. 
Robert H. Parkinson, of Cincinnati, speaks as 



CYBUS HALL McGOBMIGK 221 

follows of one of the last interviews he had with 
Mr. McCormick: " Though struggling with the 
infirmities of age, he took on a kind of majesty 
which belongs alone to that combination of great 
mental and moral strength, and he surprised me 
by the power with which he grappled the matters 
under discussion, and the strong personality be- 
fore which obstacles went down as swiftly and in- 
evitably as grain before the knife of his machine. 
I think myself fortunate in -having had this 
glimpse of him and in being able to remember 
with so much personal association a life so com- 
plete in its achievements, so far-reaching in its 
impress, alike upon the material, moral, and re- 
ligious progress of the country, and so thor- 
oughly successful and beneficial in every depart- 
ment of activity and influence which it entered." 
One of his friends, speaking of Mr. McCormick, 
said : " That which gave intensity to his purpose, 
strength to his will, and nerved him with perse- 
verance that never failed was his supreme regard 
for justice, his worshipful reverence for the true 
and right. The thoroughness of his conviction 
that justice must be done, that right must be 
maintained, made him insensible to reproach 
and impatient of delay. I do not wonder that 
his character was strong, nor that his purpose 
was invincible, nor that his plans were crowned 
with an ultimate and signal success, for where 
conviction of right is the motive-power and the 
attainment of justice the end in view, with faith 
in God there is no such word as fail." 

Cyrus H. McCormick was not only the in- 



222 INVENTORS 

ventor of a great labor-saving device, but he 
helped his fellow-man in other ways. Philan- 
thropy, religion, education, journalism, and poli- 
tics received a share of his attention. More 
than thirty years ago he was already an active 
power for good in the councils of his church. In 
1859 he proposed to the General Assembly of 
the Presbyterian Church to endow with $100,000 
the professorships of a theological seminary, to 
be established in Chicago. This was done, and 
during his lifetime he gave about half a mill- 
ion dollars to this institution — the Theological 
Seminary of the Northwest. The McCormick 
professorship of natural philosophy in the 
Washington and Lee University of Virginia, and 
gifts to the Union Theological Seminary at 
Hampden-Sidney, and to the college at Has- 
tings, Neb., also attest his solicitude for the 
church in which he had been reared and of 
which he had been a member since 1834. In 
1872 he came to the aid of the struggling organ 
of the Presbyterian Church in the Northwest, the 
Interior, and used it to foster union between the 
Old and the New Schools in the church, to aid 
in harmonizing the Presbyterian Church in the 
North and South, to advance the interests of the 
Theological Seminary, and to promote the wel- 
fare of the Presbyterian Church in the North- 
west. Under his care and advice the Interior 
grew to be a mighty voice, expressing the con- 
victions, the aspirations, and hopes of a great 
church. 




Thomas A. Edison. 



IX. 

THOMAS A. EDISON. 

Thomas A. Edison is sometimes spoken of 
rather as a master mechanic than as a master in- 
ventor or discoverer, and with regard to some of 
his work — I might even say most of it — this 
characterization holds true. Edison's fame is 
chiefly associated in the popular mind with the 
electric light. Yet it is perfectly well known to 
every student of the matter, that in all that he 
has done toward making the electric light a use- 
ful every-day — or perhaps I should say every- 
night — affair, he has simply made practicable 
what other men had invented or discovered be- 
fore him. The fundamental discovery upon 
which the incandescent electric lamp is founded 
— that a wire of metal or other substance if 
heated to incandescence in a glass bulb from 
which the air has been exhausted will give light 
for a longer or shorter time, according to the 
character of the apparatus and the degree to 
which a perfect vacuum has been effected in 
the bulb — this dates from the first half of the 
century. As early as 1849 Despretz, the French 
scientist, described a series of experiments with 
sticks of carbon sealed in a glass globe from 
which air had been exhausted. When a power^ 



224 



INVENTORS 




Edison's Paper Carbon 
Lannp. 



ful current was passed through the carbon 
filament it became luminous and remained so for 
a short time. This was, perhaps, the first of a 
long line of similar experiments 
in which a number of American 
physicists — Farmer, Draper, 
Henry, Morse, and Maxim 
among them — took part. But 
notwithstanding the labors of a 
score of experts in Europe and 
this country, the incandescent 
electric light — the wire in a glass 
bulb exhausted of its air — re- 
mained a laboratory curiosity 
up to the time, fifteen years ago, 
when Edison took hold of it. It 
gave light only for a short time 
and was too expensive a toy for practical use. 
The carbon burned out or disintegrated, and 
the lamp failed. Edison took hold of the mechan- 
ical difficulties of the problem. With a patience, 
an ingenuity, a fertility of device in which he 
stands alone, he got to the bottom of each radical 
defect and remedied it. The lamp would not 
burn long because the platinum wire used gave 
out, partly because platinum was not fitted for the 
work, fusing at too low a temperature. Edison 
substituted carbonized strips of paper. These 
in turn failed, and he found a species of bamboo 
that answered. The lamp would not burn be- 
cause air still remained in the little bulbs not- 
withstanding the most careful manipulation with 
Sprengel pumps to exhaust the air. Edison in- 



THOMAS A. EDISON . 225 

vented new pumps and devices by which the 
air, down to one millionth part, was excluded. 
The lamp cost too much to operate, because large 
copper wires were needed to carry the current, 
and the generators used up steam power too 
fast. Edison devised new forms of conductors 
and generators. All such work called more for 
mechanical ingenuity than for actual invention. 
No new principles were involved — merely the 
better adaptation of known methods. Given a 
perfect carbon, a globe perfectly free from air, 
cheap electric current, and cheap means of carry- 
ing it from the generating machine to the lamps, 
and the problem was solved. 

Edison, as a master mechanic, furnished all 
this, or at least so nearly solved the problem as 
to entitle him to claim credit for having given 
the electric light to the world — a better illumi- 
nant than gas in every way, and destined some 
day to be infinitely cheaper. 

With regard to Edison's work upon the tele- 
graph, telephone, electric railway, dynamo, the 
ore-extracting machines, the electric pen, and a 
score of other inventions which have made him 
the most profitable customer of the United States 
Patent Office in this or any other generation, the 
labor of this remarkable genius has also been 
largely that of one who made practical and use- 
ful the dreams of others. And I am by no 
means sure that the man who does this is not en- 
titled to more credit than he who simply suggests 
that such and such a wonder might be accom- 
plished and stops there. It is certain that before 
15 



226 INVENTORS 

Edison we had no electric lights; now we have 
them in every important building in the country, 
and ere long shall have them everywhere. 

Edison dislikes intensely the term discoverer 
as applied to himself. '' Discovery is not inven- 
tion," he once remarked in the course of an in« 
teresting talk with Mr. George Parsons Lathrop, 
printed in Harper s Magazine. " A discovery is 
more or less in the nature of an accident. A man 
walks along the road intending to catch the 
train. On the way his foot kicks against some- 
thing, and looking down to see what he has hit, 
he sees a gold bracelet embedded in the dust. 
He has discovered that, certainly not invented 
it. He did not set out to find a bracelet, yet the 
value of it is just as great to him at the moment 
as if, after long years of study, he had invented 
a machine for making a gold bracelet out of 
common road metal. Goodyear discovered the 
way to make hard rubber. He was at work ex- 
perimenting with india-rubber, and quite by 
chance he hit upon a process which hardened it 
— the last result in the world that he wished or 
expected to attain. In a discovery there must 
be an element of the accidental, and an impor- 
tant one, too ; while an invention is purely de- 
ductive. In my Own case^but few, and those the 
least important, of my inventions owed anything 
to accident. Most of them have been hammered 
out after long and patient labor, and are the re- 
sult of countless experiments all directed toward 
attaining some well-defined object. All mechan- 
ical improvements may safely be said to be in- 



THOMAS A. EDISON 



227 



ventions and not discoveries. The sewing-ma- 
chine was an invention. So were the steam- 
engine and the typewriter. Speaking of this 
latter, did I ever tell you that I made the first 
twelve typewriters at my old factory in Railroad 
Avenue, Newark ? This was in 1869 or 1870, and 
I myself had worked at a machine of similar 




Edison Listening to his Phonograph. 



character, but never found time to develop it 
fully." 

There is one great invention, however, for 
which Edison deserves credit, both as discoverer 
and practical inventor — the phonograph. Here 
was a genuine discovery. The phonograph 
knows no other parent than Edison, and he has 
brought it to its present condition by devotion 
and tireless skill. I have always believed in the 
phonograph as an instrument destined to play 



228 INVENTORS 

some day an important part among the blessings 
that ingenuity has given to man. There are still 
obstacles in the way of its practical success, but 
that the missing screw or spring — perhaps no 
more than that — will be found in the near future, 
is not doubted by any competent observer. 

Thomas Alva Edison was born February ii, 
1847, ^t Milan, Erie County, O., an obscure canal 
village. When a small boy, his family, a most 
humble one (his father being a village jack-of- 
all-trades, living upon odd jobs done for neigh- 
boring farmers), moved to Port Huron, Mich., 
where Edison's boyhood was passed. There his 
father was in turn tailor, well-digger, nursery- 
man, dealer in grain, lumber, and farm lands. 
His parents were of Dutch-Scotch descent and 
gave him the iron constitution that enables him 
to-day, at the age of forty-seven, to tire out the 
most robust of his assistants. One of his ances- 
tors lived to the age of one hundred and two, 
and another to the age of one hundred and three, 
so that we may reasonably expect the famous in- 
ventor to open the door for us to still other won- 
ders of which we do not yet even dream. His 
mother, born in Massachusetts, had a good edu- 
cation and at one time tauscht school in Canada. 
Of regular schooling, young Edison had but two 
months in his life. Whatever else he knew as 
a boy he learned from his mother. There are 
no records showing extraordinary promise on 
his part. He was an omniverous reader, having 
an intense curiosity about the world and its 
great men. At ten years of age he was reading 



THOMAS A. EDISON 229 

Hume's " England," Gibbon's '' Rome," the Pen- 
ny Encyclopasdia, and some books on chemistry. 

At the age of twelve he entered upon his life 
work as newsboy on the Grand Trunk Railroad 
of Canada and the Michigan Central, selling pa 
pers, books, candies, etc., to the passengers. 

" Were you one of the train-boys," he was once 
asked, '' who sold figs in boxes with bottoms half 
an inch thick? " 

" If I recollect aright," he replied, with a merry 
twinkle, " the bottoms of my boxes were a good 
inch." 

Perhaps the twelve-year-old boy learned some- 
thing from the books and papers he sold. At 
all events he says that the love of chemistry, 
even at that age, led him to make the corner of 
the baggage-car where he stored his wares a 
small laboratory, fitted up with such retorts and 
bottles as he could pick up in the railroad work- 
shops. He had a copy of Fresenius's '' Qualita- 
tive Analysis," into which he plunged with the 
ardor a small boy usually shows for nothing liter- 
ary unless it has a yellow cover decorated with 
an Indian's head. He seems also to have had a 
habit of " hanging around" all interesting places, 
from a machine-shop to a printing-ofiice, keep- 
ing his eyes very wide open. In one such expe- 
dition he received as a gift from W. F. Storey, 
of the Detroit Free Press, three hundred pounds 
of old type thrown out as useless. With an old 
hand-press he began printing a paper of his own, 
the Grand Trunk Herald, of which he sold sever- 
al hundred copies a week, the employees of the 



230 



INVENTORS 



road being his best customers. " My news," he 
says, talking of this time, " was purely local. But 
I was proud of my newspaper and looked upon 



.1 » — 

Port Huron F fruary 3r(l 18G2,^ 



.airfgg 



"^^^"^ISjnWrailroadX 





CHANGE %JS}^^,^'^^^_^. 
Going v^'.t. 
Express, leaves PoroJHuron.7.05 PN 

H\li Fon Detroit, leave. J^tKuron^jJ^P %H 

>" " GOING llAST. -T' 

Express le^vwDetroH. Fo (Toronto, at 6 15 A,M 

Mixed, For Pt. Huron J.'ove:* aU 4.00 P.M 

Two' Freight Traini»t>A -way. 

« I j C, R, Christie, Supt. 

1 . <-\ — ""\r:^- 

'.^ * STAGES. 



New Ballimor 
Butter .'tie toilets per lb C. 

Enus, nt 1-ctS pe>"<<or, ml 

Lard at 7 lo Orents fiev !■■> W 

Dressed Hot«. at 3.00 lo 3 1:5 per iCdCXS. 
FIccl.-.-'l 450 to 475 p^-- bbl. 
BuckwhcM Rt 1.60 ve'-lO'l'I'i ^ 

Motbn-or4no5clsper b. ^ 

Be«>is-at 1.00 to i.20 pt.-)).i.'.b » 

Polaloes at 60 t^JdiJS <.'^---<'r soch 
Corn ul 30 to 35 ct<. pe.'hush. ■ 
r-irkcys- rt 50 tf> ^5.rK cacV. | if 
Chickens fvj 10 to lie cts .vlH. 
Geese at 25 to 35 <:.e»l' eAtH 
f>ucks' (sl 30 cent? per pi^r. 



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A tri.w.eKly5tage ]e5va|f^^ov_ejie!5ed|tal- 1^^ 
;oTe«fy"ff^forJS5w Baffnore Algonac 5w>n J ^ _ 

CreeR. and Newport. ml 

Graves propietor^ 



MAIL 
DMly Exprees leaves, 
every morning on &xns\\ 
roit. For Baltimore. Alg 
Newport. 



•kW Baltimore Station 
\ the Train from Del- 
%c Swaji Cree)<. and 
o'l^V 4 BennetU ^flig^ 



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A^n OmnibuAjeaves the Kfallon for Pt 
on the arrival of all TraJ4 

Far^/cen's. Oley Agent 



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SPLENDID PORTABLE COPYING 

FRESSKS FOR SALE AT si 

hlK, CLEMENS OKDfRS TAKEN, \] 

BY THE NEWS AGENT ON THE MIXED'J 

llidgoway Refreshment Uooms -.1 wn^nHomV 

;l>my friends lh»t 1 have opened a refVeshnient 

room for the acco.naiJalion ol the traveling ou bljc 

R, Allen, propictor. .u 



TO THE KAlLROAD MEN . 
, RallioocI Mei\ .ycndii. yourordcis for Butter^ 
LOST LOStJlOST, j E-Ks. Urft Clw<-e Turkeys. Chickens, and 

A small parcel of CWhJ|. ns lost on the c^rs \ Gecsc V^, C. Hulcts, New Baltimore StMlon. 

The Finder will be lib.', lly reworded- 

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; 



From Edison's Nev^spaper, the "Grand Trunk Herald." . 

myself as a full-fledged newspaper man. My 
items used to run about like this: 'John Rob- 
inson, baggage-master at James's Creek Station, 
fell off the platform yesterday and hurt his leg. 



THOMAS A. EDISON 231 

The boys are sorry for John.' Or, * No. 3 Bur- 
ling-ton engine has gone into the shed for re- 
pairs. 

This was Edison's only dip into a literary occu- 
pation. He has no predilection in that way. He 
realizes the value of newspapers and books, but 
chiefly as tools, and his splendid library at the 
Orange laboratory, kept with scrupulous system, 
is filled with scientific books and periodicals 
only. Telegraphy was to be the field in which 
he was to win his first laurels. Some years ago 
he told the story as follows : 

" At the beginning of the civil war I was slav- 
ing late and early at selling papers ; but, to tell 
the truth, I was not making a fortune. I worked 
on so small a margin that I had to be mighty 
careful not to overload myself with papers that 
I could not sell. On the other hand, I could not 
afford to carry so few that I should find myself 
sold out long before the end of the trip. To en- 
able myself to hit the happy mean, I formed a 
plan which turned out admirably. I made a 
friend of one of the compositors of the Free 
Press office, and persuaded him to show me every 
day a ' galley-proof ' of the most important news 
article. From a study of its head-lines I soon 
learned to gauge the value of the day's news and 
its selling capacity, so that I could form a toler- 
ably correct estimate of the number of papers I 
should need. As a rule I could dispose of about 
two hundred ; but if there was any special news 
from the seat of war, the sale ran up to three 
hundred or over. Well, one day my compositor 



232 INVENTORS 

brought me a proof-slip of which nearly the 
whole was taken up with a gigantic display head. 
It was the first report of the battle of Pittsburgh 
Landing — afterward called Shiloh, you know — 
and it gave the number of killed and wounded 
as sixty thousand men. 

" I grasped the situation at once. Here was a 
chance for enormous sales, if only the people 
along the line could know what had happened ! 
If only they could see the proof-slip I was then 
reading ! Suddenly an idea occurred to me. I 
rushed off to the telegraph-operator and gravely 
made a proposition to him which he received just 
as gravely. He on his part was to wire to each 
of the principal stations on our route, asking the 
station-master to chalk up on the bulletin-board — 
used for announcing the time of arrival and de- 
parture of trains — the news of the great battle, 
with its accompanying slaughter. This he was 
to do at once, while I, in return, agreed to sup- 
ply him with current literature * free, gratis, for 
nothing ' during the next six months from that 
date. 

" This bargain struck, I began to bethink me 
how I was to get enough papers to make the 
grand coup I intended. I had very little cash 
and, I feared, still less credit. I went to the su- 
perintendent of the delivery department, and 
preferred a modest request for one thousand 
copies of the Free Press on trust. I was not 
much surprised when my request was curtly and 
gruffly refused. In those days, though, I was a 
pretty cheeky boy and I felt desperate, for I saw 



THOMAS A. EDISON 233 

a small fortune in prospect if my telegraph oper- 
ator had kept his word — a point on which I was 
still a trifle doubtful. Nerving myself for a great 
stroke, I marched upstairs into the office of Wil- 
bur F. Storey himself and asked to see him. A 
few minutes later I was shown in to him. I told 
who I was, and that I wanted fifteen hundred 
copies of the paper on credit. The tall, thin, 
dark-eyed, ascetic-looking man stared at me for 
a moment and then scratched a few words on a 
slip of paper. ' Take that downstairs,' said he, 
' and you will get what you want.' And so I 
did. Then I felt happier than I have ever felt 
since. 

'' I took my fifteen hundred papers, got three 
boys to help me fold them, and mounted the 
train all agog to find out whether the telegraph 
operator had kept his word. At the town where 
our first stop was made I usually sold two pa- 
pers. As the train swung into that station I 
looked ahead and thought there must be a riot 
going on. A big crowd filled the platform and 
as the train drew up I began to realize that they 
wanted my papers. Before we left I had sold a 
hundred or two at five cents apiece. At the 
next station the place was fairly black with 
people. I raised the ' ante ' and sold three hun- 
dred papers at ten cents each. So it went on 
until Port Huron was reached. Then I trans- 
ferred my remaining stock to the wagon which 
always waited for me there, hired a small boy to 
sit on the pile of papers in the back, so as to dis- 
count any pilfering, and sold out every paper I 



234 INVENTORS 

had at a quarter of a dollar or more per copy. 
I remember I passed a church full of worship- 
pers, and stopped to yell out my news. In ten 
seconds there was not a soul left in meeting. 
All of them, including the parson, were clus- 
tered around me, bidding against each other for 
copies of the precious paper. 

'' You can understand why it struck me then 
that the telegraph must be about the best thing 
going, for it was the telegraphic notices on the 
bulletin-boards that had done the trick. I deter- 
mined at once to become a telegraph-operator. 
But if it hadn't been for Wilbur F. Storey I 
should never have fully appreciated the wonders 
of electrical science." 

Telegraphy became a hobby with the boy. 
From every operator along the road he picked 
up something. He strung the basement of his 
father's house at Port Huron with wires, and 
constructed a short line, using for the batteries 
stove-pipe wire, old bottles, nails, and zinc which 
urchins of the neighborhood were induced to 
cut out from under the stoves of their unsuspect- 
ing mothers and bring to young Edison at three 
cents a pound. In order to save time for his 
experiments, he had the habit of leaping from a 
train while it was going at the rate of twenty- 
five miles an hour, landing upon a pile of sand 
arranged by him for that purpose. An act of 
personal courage — ^^the saving of the station- 
master's child at Port Clements from an advanc- 
ing train — was a turning-point in his career, for 
the grateful father taught him telegraphing in 



THOMAS A. EDISON 235 

the regular way. Telegraphy was then in its in- 
fancy, comparatively speaking ; operators were 
few, and good wages could be earned by means 
of much less proficiency than is now required. 
Still, Edison had so little leisure at his disposal 
for learning the new trade, that it took him sev- 
eral years to become an expert operator. Most 
of his studies were carried on in the corner of 
the baggage-car that served him as printing- 
office, laboratory, and business headquarters. 
With so many irons in the fire, mishaps were 
sure to occur. Once he received a drubbing on 
account of an article reflecting unpleasantly 
upon some employee of the road. One day 
during his absence a bottle of phosphorus upset 
and set the old railroad caboose on fire, where- 
upon the conductor threw out all the painfully 
acquired apparatus and thrashed its owner. 

Edison's first regular employment as telegraph- 
operator was at Indianapolis when he was 
eighteen years old. He received a small salary 
for day-work in the railroad office there, and 
at night he used to receive newspaper reports 
for practice. The regular operator was a man 
given to copious libations, who was glad enough 
to sleep off their effects while Edison and a young 
friend of his named Parmley did his work. " I 
would sit down," says Edison, ''for ten minutes, 
and ' take ' as much as I could from the instru- 
ment, carrying the rest in my head. Then while 
I wrote out, Parmley would serve his turn at 
' taking,' and so on. This worked well until they 
put a new man on at the Cincinnati end. He 



236 INVENTORS 

was one of the quickest despatchers in the busi- 
ness, and we soon found it was hopeless for us to 
try to keep up with him. Then it was that I 
worked out my first invention, and necessity was 
certainly the mother of it. 

'' I got two old Morse registers and arranged 
them in such a way that by running a strip of 
paper through them the dots and dashes were 
recorded on it by the first instrument as fast as 
they were delivered from the Cincinnati end, 
and were transmitted to us through the other in- 
strument at any desired rate of speed. They 
would come in on one instrument at the rate of 
forty words a minute, and would be ground out 
of our instrument at the rate of twenty-five. 
Then weren't we proud ! Our copy used to be 
so clean and beautiful that we hung it up on ex- 
hibition; and our manager used to come and 
gaze at it silently with a puzzled expression. 
He could not understand it, neither could any of 
the other operators; for we used to hide my im- 
promptu automatic recorder when our toil was 
over. But the crash came when there was a big 
night's work — a Presidential vote, I think it was 
— and copy kept pouring in at the top rate of 
speed until we fell an hour and a half or two 
hours behind. The newspapers sent in frantic 
complaints, an investigation was made, and our 
little scheme was discovered. We couldn't use 
it any more. 

" It was that same rude automatic recorder that 
indirectly led me long afterward to invent the 
phonograph. I'll tell you how this came about. 



THOMAS A. EDISON 



237 



After thinking over the matter a great deal, I 
came to the point where, in 1877, I had worked 
out satisfactorily an instrument that would not 
only record telegrams by indenting a strip of 
paper with dots and dashes of the Morse code, 
but would also repeat a message any number of 
times at any rate of speed required. I was then 
experimenting with the telephone also, and my 
mind was filled with theories of sound vibra- 




Edison's Tinfoil Pnonograph — the First Practical Machine. 

tions and their transmission by diaphragms. 
Naturally enough, the idea occurred to me: if 
the indentations on paper could be made to 
give forth again the click of the instrument, Avhy 
could not the vibrations of a diaphragm be 
recorded and similarly reproduced ? I rigged 
up an instrument hastily and pulled a strip of 
paper through it, at the same time shouting, 
' Hallo ' ! Then the paper was pulled through 
again, my friend Batchelor and I listening breath- 
lessly. We heard a distinct sound, which a 
strong imagination might have translated into 



238 INVENTORS 

the orig-inal ' Hallo.' That was enough to lead 
me to a further experiment. But Batchelor was 
sceptical, and bet me a barrel of apples that I 
couldn't make the thing go. I made a drawing 
of a model and took it to Mr. Kruesi, at that 
time engaged on piece-work for me, but now as- 
sistant general manager of our machine-shop at 
Schenectady. I told him it was a talking-ma- 
chine. He grinned, thinking it a joke ; but he 
set to work and soon had the model ready. I 
arranged some tinfoil on it, and spoke into the 
machine. Kruesi looked on, still grinning. But 
when I arranged the machine for transmission 
and we both heard a distinct sound from it, he 
nearly fell down in his fright. I was a little 
scared myself, I must admit. I won that barrel 
of apples from Batchelor, though, and was 
mighty glad to get it." 

To go back to earlier days, the story of Edi- 
son's first years as a full-fledged operator shows 
that from the beginning he was more of an in- 
ventor than an operator. He was full of ideas, 
some of which were gratefully received. One 
day an ice-jam broke the cable between Port 
Huron, in Michigan, and Sarnia, on the Canada 
side, and stopped communication. The river is 
a mile and a half wide and was impassable. 
Young Edison jumped upon a locomotive and 
seized the valve controlling the whistle. He had 
the idea that the scream of the whistle might be 
broken into long and short notes, corresponding 
to the dots and dashes of the telegraphic code. 



THOMAS A. EDISON 239 

" Hallo there, Sarnia ! Do you get me ? Do 
you hear what I say?" tooted the locomotive. 

No answer. 

'' Do you hear what I say, Sarnia? " 

A third, fourth, and fifth time the message 
went across without response, but finally the 
idea was caught on the other side ; answering 
toots came cheerfully back and the connection 
was recovered. 

Anything connected with the difficulties of 
telegraphy had a fascination for him. He lost 
many a place because of unpardonable blunders 
due to his passion for improvement. At Strat- 
ford, Canada, being required to report the word 
'' Six " every half hour to the manager to show 
that he was awake and on duty, he rigged up a 
wheel to do it for him. At Indianapolis he kept 
press reports waiting whilehe experimented with 
new devices for receiving them. At Louisville, 
in procuring some sulphuric acid at night for his 
experiments, he tipped over a carboy of it, ruining 
the handsome outfit of a banking establishment be- 
low. At Cincinnati he abandoned the office on 
every pretext to hasten to the Mechanics' Libra- 
ry to pass his day in reading. 

An indication of his thirst for knowledge, and 
of a 7taive ignoring of enormous difficulties, is 
found in a project formed by him at this time to 
read through the whole public library. There 
was no one to tell him that a summary of human 
knowledge may be found in a moderate number 
of volumes, nor to point out to him what they 
are. Each book was to him a part of the great 



240 INVENTORS 

domain of knowledge, none of which he meant 
to lose. He began with the solid treatises of a 
dusty lower shelf and actually read, in the ac- 
complishment of his heroic purpose, fifteen feet 
along that shelf. He omitted no book and noth- 
ing in the book. The list contained Newton's 
'' Principia," Ure's Scientific Dictionary, and 
Burton's ''Anatomy of Melancholy." 

At that time a message sent from New Orleans 
to New York had to be taken at Memphis, re- 
telegraphed to Louisville, taken down again by 
the operator there, and telegraphed to another 
centre, and so on till it reached New York. 
Time was lost and the chance of error was in- 
creased. Edison was the first to connect New 
Orleans and New York directly. It was just 
after the war. He perfected an automatic re- 
peater which was put on at Memphis and did 
its work perfectly. The manager of the office 
there, one Johnson, had a relative who was also 
busy on the same problem, but Edison solved it 
ahead of him and received complimentary no- 
tices from the local papers. He was discharged 
without cause. He got a pass as far as Decatur 
on his way home, but had to walk from there to 
Nashville, a hundred and fifty miles. From 
there he got a pass to Louisville, where he ar- 
rived during a sharp snow-storm, clad in a linen 
duster. 

It was soon after this that Edison, already 
a swift and competent operator when he de- 
voted himself to practical work, received prom- 
ise of employment in the Boston office. The 



THOMAS A. EDISON 241 

weather was quite cold and his peculiar dress, 
topped with a slouchy broad-brimmed hat, made 
something of a sensation. But Edison then cared 
as little for dress as he does to-day. So one raw 
wet day a tall man with a limp, wet duster cling-- 
ing to his legs, stalked into the superintendent's 
room, and said : 

'' Here I am." 

The superintendent eyed him from head to 
foot, and said : 

'' Who are you?" 

" Tom Edison." 

"And who on earth might Tom Edison be?" 

The young man explained that he had been 
ordered to report for duty at the Boston office, 
and was finally told to sit down in the operating- 
room, where his advent created much merriment. 
The operators guyed him loudly enough for him 
to hear. He didn't care. A few moments later 
a New York sender noted for his swiftness called 
up the Boston office. There was no one at lib- 
erty. 

'' Well," said the office chief, " let that new fel- 
low try him." Edison sat down, and for four 
hours and a half wrote out messages in his pecul- 
iarly clear round hand, stuck a date and number 
on them and threw them on the floor for the 
office boy to pick up. The time he took in 
numbering and dating the sheets were the only 
seconds he was not writing out transmitted 
words. Faster and faster ticked the instrument, 
and faster and faster went Edison's fingers, until 
the rapidity with which the messages came tum- 
16 



24:2 INVENTORS 

bling on the floor attracted the attention of the 
other operators, who, when their work was done, 
gathered around to witness the spectacle. At 
the close of the four and a half hours' work 
there flashed from New York the salutation : 

''Hello!" 

'' Hello yourself," ticked back Edison. 

'' Who the devil are you ^ " rattled into the 
Boston office. 

''Tom Edison." 

" You are the first man in the country," ticked 
the instrument, " that could ever take me at 
my fastest, and the only one who could ever 
sit at the other end of my wire for more than 
two hours and a half. I'm proud to know 
you." 

Edison was once asked with what invention he 
really began his career as an inventor. 

" Well," said he, in reply, " my first appearance 
at the Patent Office was in 1868, when I was 
twenty-one, with an ingenious contrivance Avhich 
I called the electrical vote recorder. I had been 
impressed with the enormous waste of time in 
Congress and in the State Legislatures by the 
taking of votes on any motion. More than halt 
an hour was sometimes required to count the 
' Ayes ' and ' Noes.' So I devised a machine 
somewhat on the plan of the hotel annunciator 
that was invented long afterward, only mine 
was a great deal more complex. In front of 
each member's desk we^e to have been two but- 
tons, one for ' Aye,' the other for ' No,' and by 
the side of the Speaker's desk a frame with two 



THOMAS A, EDISON 



243 



dials, one showing the total of ' Ayes ' and the 
other the total of ' Noes.' When the vote was 
called for, each member could press the button 
he wished and the re- 
sult would appear auto- 
matically before the 
Speaker, who could 
glance at the dials and 
announce the result. 
This contrivance would 
save several hours of 
public time every day 
in the session, and I 
thought my fortune 
was made. I interested 
a moneyed man in the 
thing and we went to- 
gether to Washington, 
where we soon found 
the right man to get 
the machine adopted. 

I set forth its merits. Imagine my feelings 
when, in a horrified tone, he exclaimed : 

'' ' Young man, that won't do at all. That is 
just what we do not want. Your invention 
would destroy the only hope the minority have 
of influencing legislation. It would deliver 
them over, bound hand and foot, to the majority. 
The present system gives them time, a weapon 
which is invaluable, and as the ruling majority 
always knows that they may some day become a 
minority, they will be as much averse to any 
change as their opponents.' I saw the force of 




Vote Recorder — Edison's First Patented 
Invention. 



244 INVENTORS 

these remarks, and the vote recorder got no 
further than the Patent Office." 

But he began to believe in himself. His next 
work was upon the applications of the vibratory 
principle in telegraphing, upon which so many of 
his subsequent inventions were founded. His 
first ambitious attempt was in the direction of a 
multiplex system for sending several messages 
over one wire at the same time. It Avas not 
much of a success, however, and Edison drifted 
to New York, where, after a vain attempt to in- 
terest the telegraph companies in his inventions, 
he established himself as an electrical expert 
ready for odd jobs and making a specialty of 
telegraphy. One day the Western Union Com- 
pany had trouble with its Albany wire. The wire 
wasn't broken, but wouldn't work, and several 
days of experimenting on the part of the com- 
pany's electricians only served to puzzle them 
the more. As a forlorn hope they sent for 
young Edison. 

'' How long will you give me ? " he asked. 
'' Six hours? " 

The manager laughed and told him he would 
need longer than that. 

Edison sat down at the instrument, established 
communication with Albany by way of Pitts- 
burgh, told the Albany office to put their best 
man at the instrument, and began a rapid series 
of tests with currents of all intensities. He 
directed the tests from both ends, and after two 
hours and a half told the company's officers that 
the trouble existed at a certain point he named 



THOMAS A. EDISON 245 

on the line, and he told them what it was. They 
telegraphed the office nearest this point the 
necessary directions, and an hour later the wire 
was working properly. This incident first es- 
tablished his value in New York as an expert, 
and the business became profitable. Moreover, 
it led the different telegraph companies to give 
respectful attention to what he had to offer in 
the way of patented devices. 

Edison's mechanical skill soon became so noted 
that he was made superintendent of the repair 
shop of one of the smaller telegraph companies 
then in existence, all of which were using what 
was known as the Page sounder, a device for 
signalling, the sole right to which was claimed 
by the Western Union Company. Owing to the 
latter company's success in a patent suit over 
this sounder, there came a time when an injunc- 
tion was obtained, silencing all sounders of that 
type, and practically putting a serious obstacle in 
the way of rapid work. Edison was called into 
the president's office and the situation explained. 
For a long time, according to one who was pres- 
ent, he stood chewing vigorously upon a mouth- 
ful of tobacco, looking first at the sounder in his 
hand, and then falling into a brown study. At 
length he picked up a sheet of tin used as a 
'' back" for manifolding on thin sheets of paper, 
and began to twist and cut it into queer shapes ; 
a group of persons gathered around and watched. 
Not a word was spoken. Finally Edison tore off 
the Page sounder on the instrument before him, 
and substituting his bit of tin, began working. 



246 INVENTORS 

It was not so good as the patented arrangement 
discarded, but it worked. In four hours a hun- 
dred such devices were in use over the line, and 
what would have been a ruinous interruption to 
business was avoided. 

Edison's first large sums of money came from 
the sale of an improvement in the instruments 
used to record stock quotations in brokers' of- 
fices, commonly known as '' tickers." His suc- 
cess in this direction led him to take a contract 
to manufacture some hundreds of " tickers," and 
his only venture in this direction was carried out 
with considerable success at a shop he rented in 
Newark about 1875. But as he told me a few 
years later, in talking about this incident in his 
career, manufacturing was not in his line. Like 
Thoreau, who having succeeded in making a 
perfect lead -pencil, declared he should never 
make another, he hates routine. " I was a poor 
manufacturer," said he, "because I could not let 
well enough alone. My first impulse upon tak- 
ing any apparatus into my hand, from an egg- 
beater to an electric-motor, is to seek a way of 
improving it. Therefore, as soon as I have fin- 
ished a machine I am anxious to take it apart 
again in order to make an experiment. That is 
a costly mania for a manufacturer." 

It was his success with a device for printing 
stock quotations upon paper tape that finally in- 
duced several New York capitalists to accept 
Edison's offer to experiment with the incandes- 
cent electric light, they to pay the expense of the 
experiments and share in the inventions if any 




Edison in his Laboratory. 



THOMAS A. EDISON 247 

were made. For the sake of quiet Edison moved 
out to Menlo Park, a little station on the Penn- 
S3'lvania road about twenty-five miles beyond 
Newark, and built a shop twenty-eight feet wide, 
one hundred feet long-, and two stories high. It 
was here that I first made his acquaintance, in 
January, 1879, soon after the newspapers had 
announced that he had solved the problem 
of the electric light. It may be remembered 
that gas stock tumbled in price, at that time, and 
there was a rush to sell before the new light 
should displace gas altogether. One cold day I 
climbed the hill from the station, and once past 
the reception-room, in which every new-comer 
was carefully scrutinized, for inventors are apt to 
have odds and ends lying about that they do not 
want seen by everyone, I found myself in a long 
big work-shop. To anyone accustomed to the 
orderly appearance of the ideal machine-shop, 
it presented a curious appearance, for evidently 
half the machines in it — forges, lathes, furnaces, 
retorts, etc.— were dismantled for the moment 
and useless. Half a dozen workmen were busy 
in an apparently aimless manner. 

Upstairs, in a room devoted to chemical ex- 
periments, I found Edison himself. He is to-day 
just what he was then. Prosperity has not 
changed him in the least, except perhaps in one 
particular. In those days of struggle the inven- 
tor was far less affable with visitors than he is to- 
day. One felt instinctively that he was a man 
struggling to accomplish some serious task to 
which he was devoting every waking thought 



248 INVENTOnS 

and probably dreaming about it at night. As I 
strode across the laboratory in the direction in- 
dicated by one of the workmen present, a com- 
pactly built but not tall man, with rather a boy- 
ish, clean - shaven face, prematurely old, was 
holding a vial of some liquid up to the light. 
He had on a blouse such as chemists wear, but 
it was hardly necessary, as his clothes were well 
stained with acids ; his hands were covered with 
some oil with which his hair was liberally streaked, 
as he had a habit of wiping his fingers upon his 
head. '' Good clothes are wasted upon me," he 
once explained to me. '' I feel it is wrong to 
wear any, and I never put on a new suit when 
I can help it." Edison has been slightly deaf 
for a number of years, and like all persons of de- 
fective hearing, closely watches anyone with 
whom he talks. His patience with visitors is 
proverbial, and provided any intelligence is 
shown, he will plunge into long explanations. 
As he goes on from point to point, warming up 
to his subject, he is sometimes quite oblivious to 
the fact that it is all lost upon his visitor until 
brought back by some question or comment 
which shows that he might as well talk Sanscrit. 
Then he laughs and goes back to simpler mat- 
ters. 

I watched him for a few moments before pre- 
senting myself. After a long look at his bottle, 
held up against the light, he put it down again 
on the table before him, and resting his head be- 
tween his hands, both elbows on the table, he 
peered down at the bottle as if he expected it to 



THOMAS A. EDISON 249 

say something-. Then, after a moment's brown 
study, he would seize it again, give it a shake, as 
if to shake its secret out, and hold it up to the 
light. As pantomime nothing could have been 
more expressive. That liquid contained a secret 
it Avould not give up, but if it could be made to 
give it up, Edison was the man to do it, as a ter- 
rier might worry the life out of a rat. 

The secret of his success might well be '' Per- 
sistency, more persistency, still more persist- 
ency." One of his foremen relates that once in 
Newark when his printing telegraph suddenly 
refused to work, he locked himself into his labor- 
atory, declaring that he would not come out till 
the trouble was found. It took him sixty hours, 
during which time his only food consisted of 
crackers and cheese eaten at the bench ; then he 
went to bed and slept twenty hours at a stretch. 
At another time, during the height of the first 
electric-light excitement, all the lamps he had 
burning in Menlo Park, about eighty in all, sud- 
denly went out, one after another, without appar- 
ent cause. Everything had gone well for nearly 
a month and the great success of the experiment 
had been published to the world. If the lamps, 
with their carbon filaments of charred paper 
would burn for a month there seemed to be no 
reason why they should not burn for a year, and 
Edison was stunned by the catastrophe. The 
trouble was evidently in the lamps themselves, 
for new lamps burned well. Then began the 
most exciting and most exhaustive series of ex- 
periments ever undertaken by an American phys- 



250 



INVENTORS 



icist. For five days Edison remained day and 
night at the laboratory, sleeping only when his 
assistants took his place at whatever was going 
on. The difficulties in the way of experimenting 
with the incandescent lamp are enormous because 
the light only burns when in a vacuum. The 
instant the glass is broken, out it goes. Edison's 




Edison's Menio Park Electric Locomotive ( 1880). 

eyes grew weak studying the brilliant glow of 
the carbon filament. At the end of the five days 
he took to his bed, worn out with excitement and 
sick with disappointment. During the last two 
days and nights he ate nothing. He could not 
sleep, for the moment he left the laboratory and 
closed his eyes some new test suggested itself. 
Neither was there much sleep for his faithful 



THOMAS A. EDISON 251 

force. Ordinarily one of the most considerate 
of men, he seemed quite surprised when rest and 
refreshments were sometimes suggested as in 
order after fifteen hours' incessant work. The 
trouble was finally discovered to be one that time 
alone could have proved. The air was not suf- 
ficiently exhausted from the lamps. To add to 
the discomfiture of the inventor, a professor of 
physics in one of the well-known colleges de- 
clared in a newspaper article widely circulated 
that the Edison lamp would never last long 
enough to pay for itself. 

*' I'll make a statue of that man," said Edison 
to me one day when he was still groping in the 
dark for the secret of his temporary defeat, " and 
I'll illuminate it brilliantly with Edison lamps 
and inscribe it : ' This is the man who said the 
Edison lamp would not burn.' " 

To go back to Edison, shaking his bottle in 
the sunlight, his brown study gave way to a 
pleasant smile of welcome when I had made my 
business known. " Take a look at these filings," 
he said, making room for me at the bench. '' See 
how curiously they settle when I shake the bottle 
up. In alcohol they behave one way, but in oil 
in this way. Isn't that the most curious thing 
you ever saw — better than a play at one of your 
city theatres, eh?" and he chuckled to himself 
as he shook them up again. 

" What I want to know," he went on, more to 
himself than to me, " is what they mean by it, 
and I'm going to find out." To me the interest- 
ing spectacle was Edison tossing up his bottle 



252 INVENTORS 

and watching the filings settle, and not the curi- 
ous behavior of the filings. 

When he put the bottle by, with a deep sigh, 
he took me over the whole place, pointing out 
with particular pride the apparatus for making 
the paper carbons for the lamps, and the new 
forms of Sprengel mercury pumps that did bet- 
ter work in extracting air from the lamps than 
any yet devised. 

Looking back to that first visit to Edison, the 
first of perhaps a score that I have had occasion 
to make him in the last fifteen years, what im- 
pressed me most was the immensity of the field 
in which he takes an interest. Ask Edison what 
he thinks will be the next step in the develop- 
ment of the sewing-machine, or the telescope, the 
microscope, the steam-engine, the electric-motor, 
the reaping-machine, or any device by which 
man accomplishes much work in little time, and 
invariably it will be found that he has some novel 
ideas upon the subject, perhaps fanciful in the 
extreme, but practical enough to show that he 
has pondered the matter. He shares the opinion 
of the gentleman who insists that whatever is is 
wrong, but only to this extent : that whatever is 
might be better. Authority means nothing to 
him ; he must test for himself. For instance, it 
is well known that he rejects the Newtonian 
theory in part and holds that motion is an inher- 
ent property of matter ; that it pushes, finding 
its way in the direction of least resistance, and is 
not pulled or attracted. '' It seems to me," he 
said once, " that every atom is possessed by a 



THOMAS A. EDISON 253 

certain amount of primitive intelligence. Look 
at the thousand ways in which atoms of hydro- 
gen combine with those of other elements, form- 
ing the most diverse substances. Do you mean 
to say that they do this without intelligence ? 
Atoms in harmonious and useful relation assume 
beautiful or interesting shapes and colors, or 
give forth a pleasant perfume, as if expressing 
their satisfaction. In sickness, death, decompo- 
sition, or filth the disagreement of the compo- 
nent atoms immediately makes itself felt by bad 
odors." It is partly due to this belief in the sen- 
sibility of atoms that Edison attributes his faith 
in an intelligent Creator. 

It is hard to say into what field of inquiry Edi- 
son has not dipped. He told me once that when- 
ever he' travelled he carried a note-book with 
him, in which he jotted down suggestions for 
experiments to be made. Railway journeys, at a 
time when Edison was a constant traveller, were 
productive of much material of this kind, for the 
inventor never sleeps when travelling, and his 
brain works, going over, even in a doze, the thou- 
sand and one aspects of his work, and evolving 
theories to be dismissed almost as soon as 
evolved. His mind, when at rest, reviews his 
day's work almost automatically, just as a chess- 
player's brain will, after an exciting game, go 
over every situation in a half dream-like condi- 
tion and evolve new solutions. He has great 
respect for even what appear to be the most in- 
consequential observations, provided they are 
made by a competent person, and a large force 



254 



INVENTORS 



in his splendid laboratory at Orange is always 
employed in studies that appear to the outsider 




rcA^^at. 



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T1064 



^tuc «^<rvc ccfi /i^c t'H «r*-i*^ oul i 004 



><^ ef<: 



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to be aimless ; for instance, the action of chemi- 
cals upon various substances or upon each other. 
Strips of ivory in a certain oil become trans- 
parent in six weeks. A globule of mercury in 



THOMAS A. EDISON 255 

water takes various shapes for the opposite poles 
of the electric-batter}^ upon the addition of a lit- 
tle potassium. There is no present use for the 
knowledge of such facts, but it is recorded in 
voluminous note-books, and some day the con- 
necting-link in the chain of an invaluable discov- 
ery may here be found. 

My next visit to Menlo Park was a few months 
later, when I found Edison in bed sick with dis- 
appointment. The lamps had again taken to an- 
tics for which no remedy or explanation could 
be discovered. There was an air of desolation 
over the place. The laboratory was cold and 
comfortless. Upon every side were signs of 
strict economy. Most of the assistants were 
young men glad to work for little or nothing. 
For th^ last month Edison had been working in 
the direction of a general improvement of all 
parts of the lamp instead of devoting himself to 
one feature. Expert glass-blowers were brought 
to Menlo Park, the air-pumps were made more 
perfect, new substances were tried for carbons. 
All this had taken time, during which outsiders 
freely predicted failure. The stock in the enter- 
prise fell to such a price that it was hard to raise 
money for the maintenance of the laboratory. It 
was argued, and with some truth, as I have had 
occasion to remark, that Edison had really dis- 
covered nothing new; he had attempted to do 
what a dozen famous men had tried before him 
and he had failed. The quotations of New York 
gas stocks rose again. 

The next time I visited the laboratory, a few 



256 INVENTORS 

days later, Edison was up again and talking 
cheerfully. But he had grown five years older 
in five months. " I shall succeed," he said to me, 
'' but it may take me longer than I at first sup- 
posed. Everything is so new that each step is 
in the dark ; I have to make the dynamos, the 
lamps, the conductors, and attend to a thousand 
details that the world never hears of. At the 
same time I have to think about the expense of 
my work. That galls me. My one ambition is 
to be able to work without regard to the ex- 
pense. What I mean is, that if I want to give up 
a whole month of my time and that of my whole 
establishment to finding out why one form of a 
carbon filament is slightly better than another, I 
can do it without having to think of the cost. 
My greatest luxury would be a laboratory more 
perfect than any we have in this country. I 
want a splendid collection of material — every 
chemical, every metal, every substance in fact 
that may be of use to me, and I hardly know 
what may not be of use. I want all this right at 
hand, within a few feet of my own house. Give 
me these advantages and I shall gladly devote 
fifteen hours a day to solid work. I want none 
of the rich man's usual toys, no matter how rich 
I may become. I want no horses or yachts — 
have no time for them. I want a perfect work- 
shop." 

In the last twelve years Edison has seen his 
dream fulfilled. His electric light has not dis- 
placed gas, by any means, but it has been the 
foundation of a business large enough to make 



THOMAS A. EDISON 257 

the inventor sufficiently rich to build the finest 
laboratory in the world, in the most curious 
room of which are to be found the three hun- 
dred models of machinery and apparatus of vari- 
ous kinds devised by Edison in the last twenty 
years and made by himself or under his eye. He 
is still a gaunt fellow, with a slight stoop, a clean- 
shaven face, and a low voice. His hands are still 



r 















The Home of Thomas A. Edison. 



soiled with acids, his clothes are shabby, and 
there is always a cigar in his mouth. 

The Edison laboratory deserves a chapter by 
itself. In 1886 Edison bought a fine villa in Llew- 
ellyn Park at a cost of $150,000. He took the 
house as it stood, with all its luxurious fittings, 
rather to please his wife than himself; a corner 
of the laboratory would suit him quite as well. 
Right outside the gates of the park and within 
17 



258 



INVENTORS 



view of the house, he bought ten acres of land 
and began his laboratory. Two handsome struct- 
ures of brick, each 60 feet wide, 100 feet long, 
and four stories high, accommodate the machine- 
shop, library, lecture-room, experimental work- 
shops, assistants' rooms and store-rooms. The 
boiler-house and dynamo-rooms are outside the 
main buildings. Also, in a separate room, the 
floor of which consists of immense blocks of 
stone, are the delicate instruments of precision 




Edison's Laboratory, 

used in testing electric currents. The instru- 
ments in this one room, twenty feet square, cost 
$18,000 to make and to import from Europe. 
Upon first entering the main building, the visi- 
tor finds what is apparently a busy factory of 
some sort, with long rows of machinery, from 
steam-hammers to diamond-lathes. Everywhere 
workmen are busy at their tasks, and Edison has 
good reason to be proud of his laboratory force, 
for it consists of the picked workmen of the 
country. Whenever he finds in one of the Edison 



THOMAS A. EDISON 259 

factories in Newark, New York, Schenectady, or 
elsewhere a particularly expert and intelligent 
man, he has him transferred to the Orange labor- 
atory, where, at increased pay for shorter hours, 
the man not only finds life pleasanter, but has 
a chance of learning and becoming somebody. 
The whole place hums with the rattle of ma- 
chinery and glows with electric light. There 
are eighty assistants, who have charge of the va- 
rious departments. The most expert iron-work- 
ers, glass-blowers, wood-turners, metal-spinners, 
screw-makers, chemists, and machinists in the 
country are to be found here. A rough drawing 
of the most complicated model is all they re- 
quire to work from. 

The store - rooms contain all the material 
needed. Four store-keepers are employed to 
keep the supplies, valued at $100,000, in order 
and ready for use at a moment's notice. Each 
article is put down in a catalogue which shows 
the shelf or bottle where it may be found. Every 
known metal, every chemical known to science, 
every kind of glass, stone, earth, wood, fibre, 
paper, skin, cloth, is to be found there. In mak- 
ing up the chemical collection an assistant was 
kept at work for weeks going through the three 
most exhaustive works on chemistry in English, 
French, and German, making a note of every 
substance mentioned, and this list constituted 
the order for chemicals, an order, by the way, 
which it required seven months to fill. In the 
glass department, for instance, there is every 
known kind of glass, from plates two inches 



260 INVENTORS 

thick to the finest film, and if anythiny else in 
the way of glass is needed, the glass-workers 
are there to make it. This stupendous collec- 
tion of material, filling one floor, is intended to 
guard against annoying delays that might occur 
at critical times for want of some rare material. 
In 1885, when working upon an apparatus for 
getting a current of electricity directly from heat 
— the thermo-electric generator — Edison's work 
was brought to a standstill for want of a few 
pounds of nickel, an article not then to be found 
in any quantity in this country. The store-room 
was organized to avert such delays. The library 
is the only part of the main building that shows 
any attempt at decoration. It is a superb room, 
60 feet by 40, with a height of 25 feet. Gal- 
leries run around the second story. At one 
end is a monumental fireplace, and in the centre 
of the hall a fine group of palms and ferns. The 
room is finished in oiled hard wood and lighted 
by electricity. Fine rugs cover the floors. The 
shelves contain nothing but scientific works and 
the files of the forty-six scientific periodicals in 
English, French, and German to which Edison 
subscribes. They are indexed by a librarian as 
soon as received, so that Edison can see at a 
glance what they contain concerning the special 
fields in which he is interested. 

Nothing in this big establishment, often em- 
ploying more than one hundred persons, is made 
for sale. It is wholly devoted to experimental 
work and tests. Its expenses, said to be more 
than $150,000 a year, are paid by the commer- 



THOMAS A. EDISON 261 

cial companies in which Edison is interested, he, 
on his part, giving them the benefit of any im- 
provements made. Thus in one room hundreds 
of incandescent electric lamps burn night and 
day the year through. Each lamp is specially 
marked and when it burns out more quickly than 
the average, or lasts longer, a special study is 
made as to the contributing causes. It may 
seem impossible that the suggestions of one man 
can keep busy a big workshop upon experiments 
the year round, but Edison says that the tempta- 
tion is always to increase the force. When it is 
remembered that the list of Edison's patents 
reaches to seven hundred and forty, and that on 
the electric light alone he has worked out sev- 
eral hundred theories, the wonder ceases. Ten 
minutes' work with a pencil may sketch an ap- 
paratus that a dozen men cannot finish inside of 
a fortnight. 

When the new Orange laboratory was finished 
and Edison found himself with time and means 
at his disposal, his first thought was to take up his 
phonograph. The history of the great hopes 
built upon the phonograph and the bitter dis- 
appointment that followed is too familiar to need 
repetition here. As may be imagined, Edison 
is most keenly bent upon tightening the loose 
screw that has prevented it from doing all that 
its friends predicted for it. He still works at 
other problems, but chiefly as relaxation. He 
rests from inventing one thing by inventing 
something else. 

One day recently, when I found him less con- 



THOMAS A. EDISON 263 

fident than usual as to the triumph of the phono- 
graph in the near future, he said : " There are 
some difficulties about the problem that seem 
insurmountable. I go on smoothly until at a 
certain point I run my head against a stone 
wall ; I cannot get under, over, or around it. 
After butting my head against that wall until it 
aches, I go back to the beginning again. It is 
absurd to say that because I can see no possible 
solution of the problem to-day, that I may not 
see one to-morrow. The very fact that this cen- 
tury has accomplished so much in the way of 
invention, makes it more than probable that the 
next century will do far greater things. We 
ought to be ashamed of ourselves if we are con- 
tent to fold our hands and say that the tele- 
graph, telephone, steam-engine, dynamo, and 
camera having been invented, the field has been 
exhausted. These inventions are so many won- 
derful tools with which we ought to accomplish 
far greater wonders. Unless the coming gener- 
ations are particularly lazy, the world ought to 
possess in 1993 a dozen marvels of the usefulness 
of the steam-engine and dynamo. The next step 
in advance will perhaps be the discovery of a 
method for transforming heat directly into elec- 
tricity. That will revolutionize modern life by 
making heat, power, and light almost as cheap 
as air. Inventors are already feeling their way 
toward this wonder. I have gone far enough on 
that road to know that there are several stone 
walls ahead. But the problem is one of the most 
fascinating in view." 



X. 

ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL. 

Sir Charles Wheatstone, the eminent Eng- 
lish electrician, while engaged in perfecting 
his system of telegraphy discovered that wires 
charged with electricity often carried noises in 
a curious manner. He made and exhibited at 
the Royal Society, in 1840, a clock in which the 
tick of another clock miles away was conveyed 
through a wire. This experiment appears to 
have been one of the germs of the telephone. In 
1844 Captain John Taylor, also an Englishman, 
invented an instrument to which he gave the 
name of the telephone, but it had nothing elec- 
trical about it. It was an apparatus for con- 
veying sounds at sea by means of compressed 
air forced through trumpets. He could make 
his telephone heard six miles away. The first 
real suggestion of the telephone as we know it 
comes from Reis, the German professor of phys- 
ics at Friedrichsdorf, who in i860 constructed 
with a coil of wire, a knitting-needle, the skin of 
a German sausage, the bung of a beer-barrel, and 
a strip of platinum an instrument which repro- 
duced the sound of the voice by the vibration of 
the membrane and sent a series of clicks along 
an electric wire to an electro-magnetic receiver 




Professor Bell Sending the First Message, by Long-distance Telephone, fronn New York to Chicago. 



ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 265 

at the other end of the wire. The same idea 
was taken up in this country by Elisha Gray, 
Edison, and by Alexander Graham Bell, who 
first exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition an 
apparatus that transmitted speech by electricity 
in a fairly satisfactory manner. The American 
claimants to the honor of having invented the 
telephone include Daniel Drawbaugh, a back- 
woods genius of Pennsylvania, who claims to 
have made and used a practical telephone in 
1867-68. A large fortune has been spent in 
fighting Drawbaugh's claims against the Bell 
monopoly, but the courts have finally decided in 
favor of the latter. It should be recorded as a 
matter of justice to Mr. Gray, that he appears to 
have solved the problem of conveying speech by 
electricity at about the same time as Bell. Both 
these inventors filed their caveats upon the tele- 
phone upon the same day — February 14, 1876. 
It was Bell's good fortune to be the first to make 
his device practically effective. 

Alexander Graham Bell is not an American 
by birth. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, 
on the ist of March, 1847. His father, Alexan- 
der Melville Bell, was the inventor of the sys- 
tem by which deaf people are enabled to read 
speech more or less correctly by observing 
the motion of the lips. His mother was the 
daughter of Samuel Symonds, a surgeon in the 
British navy. 

In 1872 the Bells moved to Canada, and young 
Alexander Bell became widely known in Boston 
as an authority in the teaching of the deaf and 



266 INVENTORS 

dumb. He first carried to great perfection in 
this country the art of enabling the deaf and 
dumb to enunciate intelligible words and sounds 
that they themselves have never heard. Most 
of his art he acquired from his father, one of the 
most expert of teachers in this field. The elder 
Bell is still active in his work, constantly de- 
vising new methods and experiments. He lives 
in Washington with his son and is frequently 
heard in lectures in New York and Boston. 

In 1873 Alexander Bell began to study the 
transmission of musical tones by telegraph. It 
was in the line of his work with deaf and dumb 
people to make sound vibrations visible to the 
eye. With the phonautograph he could obtain 
tracings of such vibrations upon blackened pa- 
per by means of a pencil or stylus attached to 
a vibrating cord or membrane. He also suc- 
ceeded in obtaining tracings upon smoked glass 
of the vibrations of the air produced by vowel 
sounds. He began experimenting with an ap- 
paratus resembling the human ear, and upon the 
suggestion of Dr. Clarence J. Blake, the Boston 
aurist, he tried his work upon a prepared speci- 
men of the ear itself. Observation upon the 
vibrations of the various bones within the ear 
led him to conceive the idea of vibrating a piece 
of iron in front of an electro-magnet. 

Mr. Bell was at this time an instructor in 
phonetics, or the art of visible speech, in Mon- 
roe's School of Oratory in Boston. One of his 
old pupils describes him then as a swarthy, 
foreign - looking personage, more Italian than 



ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 267 

English in appearance, with jet-black hair and 
dark skin. His manner was earnest and full of 
conviction. He was an enthusiast in his work, 
and only emerged from his habitual diffidence 
when called upon to talk upon his studies and 
views. He was miserably poor and almost with- 
out friends. When he was attacked with muscu- 
lar rheumatism, in 1873, his hospital expenses 
were paid by his employer, and his only visitors 
were some of the pupils at the school. 

Until the close of 1874, Bell's experiments 
seemed to promise nothing of practical value. 
But in 1875 he began to transmit vibrations be- 
tween two armatures, one at each end of a wire. 
He was much interested at the time in multiple 
telegraphy and fancied that something might 
come of some such arrangement of many mag- 
netic armatures responding to the vibrations set 
up in one. 

In November, 1875, he discovered that the 
vibrations created in a reed by the voice could 
be transmitted so as to reproduce words and 
sounds. One day in January, 1876, he called a 
dozen of the pupils at Monroe's school into his 
room and exhibited an apparatus by which 
singing was more or less satisfactorily transmit- 
ted by wire from the cellar of the building to a 
room on the fourth floor. The exhibition creat- 
ed a sensation among the pupils, but, although 
no attempts were made by Bell to conceal what 
he was doing, or how he did it, the noise of his 
discovery does not seem to have reached the 
outside world. With an old cigar-box, two 



268 INVENTORS 

hundred feet of wire, two magnets from a toy 
fish-pond, the first Bell telephone was brought 
into existence. The apparatus was, however, 
not yet the practical telephone as we know it, 
but it was sufficient of a curiosity to warrant 
its exhibition in an improved form at the Cen- 
tennial Exhibition, when Sir William Thomson 
spoke of it as '' perhaps the greatest marvel 
hitherto achieved by the electric telegraph." 

The next year Bell succeeded in bringing the 
telephone to the condition in which it became 
of immediate practical value. Strange to say, 
the public was at first slow to appreciate the 
great importance of the invention, and when 
Bell took it to England, in 1877, he could find 
no purchaser for half the European rights at 
$10,000. In this country, thanks to the business 
energy of Professor Gardiner Hubbard, of Har- 
vard, Bell's father-in-law, the telephone was soon 
made commercially valuable, and there are now 
said to be nearly six hundred thousand telephones 
in use in the United States alone. 

Professor Bell, as may be imagined, is not idle. 
His vast fortune has enabled him to continue 
costly experiments in aiding deaf and dumb 
people, and it will probably be in this field that 
his next achievement will be made. Personally, 
he is a reserved and thoughtful man, wholly 
given up to his scientific work. His wife, whom 
he married in 1876, was one of his deaf and dumb 
pupils. It is often said that it was largely due 
to his intense desire to soften her misfortune 
that his experiments were so exhaustive and 



ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 269 

finally became so productive in another direction. 
His home life in Washington, where he bought, 
in 1885, the superb house on Scott Circle known 
as ^' Broadhead's Folly," after the man who built 
it and ruined himself in so doing, is said to be 
an ideally peaceful and happy one, given up to 
study and efforts to alleviate the troubles of the 
deaf and dumb. 

As in the case of most inventions of such im- 
mense value as the telephone-, a fortune has had 
to be spent in order to protect the patent rights ; 
but in Bell's case the inventor's money reward 
has been ample and is now said to amount to more 
than $1,000,000 a year. Just at present Mr. Bell 
is engaged upon a modification of the phono- 
graph, which may enable persons not wholly 
deaf to hear a phonographic reproduction of the 
human voice, even if they cannot hear the voice 
itself. Honors have poured in upon him within 
the last fifteen years. In 1880 the French Gov- 
ernment awarded him the Volta prize of $10,000, 
which Mr. Bell devoted to founding the Volta 
Laboratory in Washington, an institution for the 
use of students. In 1882 he also received from 
France the ribbon of the Legion of Honor. 



XI. 



AMERICAN INVENTORS, PAST AND 
PRESENT. 

There are now in force in this country nearly 
three hundred thousand patents for inventions 
and devices of more or less importance and aid 
to everyone. To how great a degree the world 
is indebted to the inventor, very few of us real- 
ize. The more we think of the matter, however, 
the more are we likely to believe that the in-, 
ventor is mankind's great benefactor. Watt 
should stand before Napoleon in the hero- 
worship of the age, and the man who perfected 
the friction-match before the author of an epic. 
Some day this redistribution of the world's 
honors will surely take place, and it should be a 
satisfaction to us Americans that our country 
stands so high in the ranks of inventive genius. 
Within the last half century Americans have 
contributed, to mention only great achievements, 
the telegraph, the telephone, the electric light, 
the sewing-machine, the reaper, and vulcanized 
rubber, to the world's wealth — a far larger con- 
tribution than that of any other nation. What 
may not the next generation produce ? Some 
people seem to believe that so much has already 
been invented as to have exhausted the field. In 



PAST AND PRESENT 271 

this connection I have quoted in another place 
some remarks Mr. Edison once made to me as 
to what the next fifty years might bring forth. 
Still more astonishing than our past fecundity 
in invention would be future barrenness. This 
century has done its work and produced its 
marvels with comparatively blunt tools, or no 
tools at all. The next century will be able to 
work with superb instruments of which our 
grandfathers knew nothing. The school-boy to- 
day knows more of the forces of nature and their 
useful application than the magician of fifty years 
ago. It has been said that the fifteen blocks in 
the " Gem " puzzle can be arranged in more than 
a million different ways. The material in the 
game at which man daily plays is so infinitely 
more complex that the number of combi- 
nations cannot be written out in figures. The 
role played by invention in modern life is 
infinitely greater than during preceding ages. 
One invention, by affording a new tool, makes 
others possible. The steam-engine made pos- 
sible the dynamo, the dynamo made possible the 
electric light. In its turn the electric light may 
lead to wonders still more extraordinary. 

The degree to which invention has contributed 
to civilization is far from suspected by the care- 
less observer. Almost everything we have or 
use is the fruit of invention. Man might be de- 
fined as the animal that invents. The air we 
breathe and the water we drink are provided by 
Nature, but we drink Avater from a vessel of 
some kind, an invention of man. Even if we 



272 INVENTORS 

drink from a shell or a gourd, we shape it to 
serve a new purpose. If we want our air hot- 
ter or colder, we resort to invention, and a vast 
amount of ingenuity has been expended upon put- 
ting air in motion by means of fans, blowers, 
ventilators, etc. We take but a small part of our 
food as animals do — in the natural state. The 
savage who first crushed some kernels of wheat 
between two stones invented flour, and we are 
yet hard at it inventing improvements upon his 
process. The earliest inventions probably had 
reference to the procuring and preparing of 
food, and the ingenuity of man is still exercised 
upon these problems more eagerly than ever be- 
fore. During the last fifty years the power of 
man to produce food has increased more than 
during the preceding fifteen centuries. Sixty 
years ago a large part of the wheat and other 
grain raised in the world was cut, a handful at a 
time, with a scythe, and a man could not reap 
much more than a quarter of an acre a day. 
With a McCormick reaper a man and two horses 
will cut from fifteen to twenty acres of grain a 
day. In the threshing of grain, invention has 
achieved almost as much. A man with a ma- 
chine will thresh ten times as much as he for- 
merly could with a flail. 

It is less than sixty years since matches have 
come into common use. Many old men remem- 
ber the time in this country when a fire could be 
kindled only with the embers from another fire, 
as there were no such things as matches. Most 
of us who have reached the age of forty remem- 



PAST AND PRESENT 273 

ber the abominable, clumsy sulphur-matches of 
i860, as bulky as they were unpleasant. And yet 
the first sulphur-matches, made about 1830, cost 
ten cents a hundred. To-day the safety match, 
certain and odorless, is sold at one-tenth of this 
price. The introduction of kerosene was one 
of the blessings of modern life. It added sev- 
eral hours a day to the useful, intelligent life 
of man, and who can estimate the influence of 
these evening hours upon the advance of civiliza- 
tion ? The evening, after the day's work is done, 
has been the only hour when the workingman 
could read. Before cheap and good lights were 
given him, reading was out of the question. Gas 
marked a step in advance, but only for large 
towns, and now electricity bids fair soon to dis- 
place gas ; and we hear vague suggestions of a 
luminous ether that will flood houses with a soft 
glow like that of sunlight. 



TOWNSEND AND DrAKE — ThE INTRODUCTION 

OF Coal Oil. 

In 1850 sperm oil, then commonly used in 
lamps, had become high-priced, owing to the 
failure of the New Bedford whalers, and cost 
$2.25 a gallon. Oil obtained by the distillation 
of coal was tried, but was also too costly — 
not less than $1 a gallon. It burned well, 
but its odor was frightful. The problem of a 
cheap and pleasant light was solved by James M. 
Townsend and E. L. Drake, both of New Haven. 
18 



274 INVENTORS 

In 1854 a man brought to Professor Silliman, of 
Yale, some oil from Oil Creek, Pa., to be tested. 
His report was so favorable that a company 
was formed, which leased all the land along Oil 
Creek upon which were traces of the new rock 
oil. The hard times of 1857 came before any 
headway had been made, and the company tried 
to find some way of ridding itself of the lease. 
At this time Townsend, who knew something 
about the property, undertook to get possession. 
Boarding in the same house in New Haven was 
E. L. Drake, once a conductor on the New York 
& New Haven Railroad, who had been obliged 
to give up work on account of ill-health. Town- 
send proposed that as Drake could get railroad 
passes as an ex-employee, he should go to Penn- 
sylvania and look into the property. He did so, 
and reported that a fortune might be made by 
gathering the oil and bottling it for medicinal 
purposes. Drake and Townsend organized the 
Seneca Oil Company. The oil was gathered 
by digging trenches, and was sold at $1 a 
gallon. Drake suggested that it might be well 
to bore for oil. A man familiar with salt-well 
boring was brought from Syracuse, and in 1859 
the first well was begun at Titusville under the 
supervision of Drake. He was commonly con- 
sidered by the neighbors to be insane. The 
work was costly and slow. When many months 
and about $50,000 had been spent, the stockhold- 
ers in the company refused to go any further — 
all except Townsend, who sent his last $500 to 
Drake, with instructions to use it in paying 



PAST AND PRESENT 275 

debts and his expenses in reaching home. On 
the day before the receipt of this money- 
August 29, 1859— the auger, which was down 
sixty-eight feet, struck a cavity, and up came a 
flow of oil that filled the well to within five feet 
of the surface. Pumping began at the rate of 
five hundred gallons a day, and a more power- 
ful pump doubled this flow. As this oil was 
worth a dollar a gallon, fortune was within sight. 
But the very quantity of the oil proved to be the 
company's ruin. Their works were destroyed 
by fire in the winter of 1859-60, and before they 
could be rebuilt, scores of other wells, some of 
them requiring no pumping apparatus, had been 
sunk in the neighborhood. The supply was soon 
far in excess of the demand, which was limited 
by the small number of refineries, the want of 
good lamps in which to burn the oil, and the at- 
tacks by manufacturers of other oils. Such was 
the effect of these causes that the new oil fell to 
a dollar a barrel, a price so low that it did not 
pay for the handling. The Seneca Oil Company 
was so much discouraged that they sold out 
their leases and disbanded. Both Townsend and 
Drake would have died richer men had they 
never heard of the Pennsylvania rock oil. 



The Clarks and the Telescope. 

The fame of American telescopes is due to the 
work and inventions of the Clark family of Cam- 
bridgeport, Mass., the descendants of Thomas 



276 



INVENTORS 



Clark, the mate of the Ma3^flower. The foun- 
der of the great — in a scientific sense — house of 
Alvan Clark & Sons, telescope-makers, was a re- 
markable man. Until after his fortieth year he 
devoted himself to portrait-painting. In 1843 
his attention was accidentally turned toward 
telescope-making. One day the dinner-bell at 




Alvan Clark. 



Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., happened to 
break. The pieces were gathered up by one of 
Clark's boys, George, who proceeded to melt 
them in a crucible over the kitchen fire, declar- 
ing that he was going to make a telescope. His 
mother laughed, but his father was deeply in- 
terested and helped the boy make a five-inch 
reflecting telescope which showed the satellites 
of Jupiter. This was the beginning of telescope- 



PAST AND PRESENT 277 

making in the Clark family, an industry which 
has given to the scientific world its most remark- 
able lenses. Alvan Clark dropped his paint- 
brushes, never to take them up again until at the 
age of eighty-three he made an excellent portrait 
of his little grandson. To Alvan G. Clark, the 
present head of the house, are chiefly due the 
scores of devices by which American ingenuity 
has surpassed the slower European methods. 
The delicacy required in the manipulation and 
grinding of the immense lenses made by the 
Clarks is almost incredible. The latest triumph 
of the firm — a forty-inch lens for the Spence 
Observatory at Los Angeles, Cal. — required two 
years of grinding and polishing after a piece of 
glass perfect enough had been obtained. So 
delicately finished is it that half a dozen sharp 
rubs with the soft part of a man's thumb would 
be sufficient to ruin it. Alvan G. Clark is now a 
man sixty-one years old. He has lived all his 
life at the home in Cambridgeport. His great- 
est sorrow is that there is no son of his to carry 
on the work after his death. His only son died 
a few years ago, just as he was beginning to show 
wonderful aptitude in the art which has made 
the family famous in all the great observatories 
of the world. 



278 INVENTORS 



John Fitch and Oliver Evans — Steam 
Transportation. 

In looking over the work done by American 
inventors, the great names are those to be found 
at the heads of the preceding chapters. But 
the list is by no means exhausted. Among the 
early men of achievement in the field of inven- 
tion I have had to omit at least a dozen whose 
work deserves more than a paragraph. The 
history of the steamboat is not complete with- 
out reference to John Fitch. 

Fulton was fortunate in making the first really 
successful attempt at propelling boats by steam, 
but Fitch came very near reaping the honors 
for this invention. The account of Fitch's life 
and experiments, written by himself and now in 
the possession of the Franklin Library of Phil- 
adelphia, clearly shows that this unhappy genius 
really deserves to share in Fulton's glory. Fitch 
was born in Connecticut, in January, 1743, more 
than twenty years before Fulton. He was a 
farmer's boy and picked up knowledge as best 
he could. Before he was twenty he had learned 
clock-making and then button-making. It was 
in 1788 that he obtained his first patent for a 
steamboat. His experimental boat was an ex- 
traordinary affair, fully described in the Coliujt- 
<^/^;2 (Philadelphia) Magazine for December, 1786. 
Its motive power consisted of a clumsy engine 
that moved horizontal bars, upon which were 



PAST AND PRESENT 279 

fastened a number of oars or paddles. So far as 
possible the machine imitated the movements of 
a man rowing. This boat made eight miles an 
hour in calm water. Finding nothing but ridi- 
cule for his project here, as his steamboat cost 
too much money to run as a commercial under- 
taking, Fitch went to Europe, and was equally 
unsuccessful there. There is still in existence 
a letter from him in which he predicts that 
steam would some day carry vessels across 
the Atlantic. He died in 1796, without hav- 
ing contributed more than a curiosity to the 
art of steam navigation. 

Another early inventor was Oliver Evans, who 
has been called the Watt of America. In 1804 
Evans offered to build for the Lancaster Turn- 
pike Company a steam-carriage to carry one 
hundred barrels of flour fifty miles in twenty- 
four hours. The offer was derided. Here is one 
of Evans's predictions written at about this time : 
'' The time will come when people will travel in 
stages, moved by steam-engines, from one city 
to another, almost as fast as birds fly, fifteen or 
twenty miles an hour. Passing through the air 
with such velocity, changing the scene with 
such rapid succession, will be the most rapid, 
exhilarating exercise. A carriage (steam) will 
set out from Washington in the morning, 
the passengers will breakfast at Baltimore, dine 
at Philadelphia, and sup in New York the same 
day. To accomplish this, two sets of railways 
will be laid so nearly level as not in any way to 
deviate more than two degrees from a horizon- 



280 INVENTORS 

tal line, made of wood, or iron, or smooth paths 
of broken stone or gravel, with a rail to guide the 
carriages so that they may pass each other in 
different directions and travel by night as well 
as by day. Engines will drive boats ten or 
twelve miles per hour, and there will be many 
hundred steamboats running on the Mississippi." 
In 1805 Evans built a steam-carriage propelled 
by a sort of paddle-wheel at the stern, the pad- 
dles touching the ground. This apparatus he 
named the " Oructor Amphibolis," and it is be- 
lieved to have been the first application of steam 
in America to the propelling of land carriages. 
He died in 18 19 without having seen his steam- 
carriage come to anything practicable. He 
made a fortune, however, from some patents upon 
flour-mill improvements. 



Amos Whittemore and Thomas Blanchard. 

In the domain of textile fabrics Amos Whitte- 
more, the Massachusetts inventor of the card- 
machine, which did away with the old-fashioned 
method of making cards for cotton and woollen 
factories, must be mentioned. Before Whitte- 
more's machine came into use, about 18 12, such 
cards were made by hand, the laborer sticking 
one by one into sheets of leather the wire staples, 
which operation gave work to thousands of 
families in New England early in the century. 
Whittemore made a fortune by his invention, and 
devoted the last years of his life to astronomy. 



PAST AND PRESENT 281 

Another Massachusetts boy, Thomas Blanch- 
ard, invented the lathe for turning irregular 
objects, and well deserves mention. Born in 
1788, he was noted as a boy for his efficiency in 
the New England accomplishment of whittling, 
making wonderful windmills and water-wheels 
with his knife. When thirteen years old he made 
an apple-paring machine, with which at the " par- 
ing bees " held in the neighborhood he could 
accomplish more than a dozen girls. Soon after 
this achievement he began helping his brother in 
the manufacture of tacks. The operation con- 
sisted in stamping them out from a thin plate of 
iron, after which they were taken up, one at a 
time, with the thumb and finger and caught in 
a tool worked by the foot, while a blow given 
simultaneously with a hammer held in the right 
hand made a flat head of the large end of the 
tack projecting above the face of the vise. This 
was the only method then known, and it was so 
slow and irksome that young Blanchard often 
grew disgusted. As a daily task he was given a 
certain quantity of tacks to make, which number 
was ascertained by counting. Finding this much 
trouble, he constructed a counting-machine, con- 
sisting of a ratchet-wheel which moved one tooth 
every time the jaws of the heading tool or 
vise moved in the process of making a tack. 
From this achievement he passed to a tack ma- 
chine, and after six years of hard Avork turned 
out an apparatus that made five hundred tacks 
a minute. He sold his patent for the trifle of 
$5,000. 



282 INVENTORS 

With part of this money he began his experi- 
ments in turning musket-barrels, an operation 
that was simple enough except at the breech, 
where the flat and oval sides had to be ground 
down or chipped. Blanchard made a lathe that 
turned the whole barrel satisfactorily. While 
exhibiting his new lathe at the United States 
Armory at Springfield, occurred the incident 
that led to Blanchard's great device for turning 
irregular forms. One of the men employed in 
cutting musket-stocks remarked that Blanchard 
could never spoil his job, for he could not turn a 
gun-stock. The remark struck Blanchard, who 
replied, ^' I am not so sure of that, but will think 
of it a while." The result of six months' study 
was the lathe with which such articles as gun- 
stocks, shoe-lasts, hat-blocks, tackle-blocks, axe- 
handles, wig-blocks, and a thousand other objects 
of irregular shape may now be turned. While 
at Washington getting his patent, Blanchard 
exhibited his machine at the War Ofihce, where 
many heads of departments had assembled. 
Among the rest was a navy commissioner, who, 
after listening to Blanchard, remarked to the in- 
ventor: " Can you turn a seventy-four ? " 

" Yes," was the reply, *' if you will furnish the 
block." Blanchard afterward made many inter- 
esting experiments in steam-carriages, but his 
chief claim to fame rests upon his lathe. 



PAST AND PRESENT 283 



Richard M. Hoe and the Web-Press. 

From the end of the first half of this century- 
date movements of extraordinary importance in 
the world of American invention. The locomo- 
tive, the steam-engine and steam-boat, the tele- 
graph, reaping-machine, the printing-press, all 
seemed to reach an era of wide usefulness at 
about the same time. It was in 1814 that Walters 
first printed the London Times by steam, the 
sullen pressmen standing around waiting for a 
pretext to destroy the machinery, and only pre- 
vented by strategy from doing so. About thirty 
years afterward Richard M. Hoe first turned 
his attention to the improvement of printing- 
presses. The founder of the famous house of 
printing-press makers, Robert Hoe, was born in 
England. His son, Richard March Hoe, was 
born in New York on the 12th of September, 
1 812. He made his first press in 1840, when he 
turned out the machine known as '' Hoe's Double- 
cylinder," which was capable of making about six 
thousand impressions an hour, and was the ad- 
miration of all the printers in the city. So long 
as the newspaper circulation knew no great in- 
crease this wonderful press was all-sufhcient ; but 
the greater the supply the greater grew the 
demand, and a printing-press capable of striking 
off papers with greater rapidity was felt to be 
an imperative need. It was often necessary to 
hold the forms back until nearly daylight for 



284: INVENTORS 

the purpose of getting the latest news, and the 
work of printing the paper had to be done in a 
very few hours. In 1842 Hoe began to experi- 
ment for the purpose of getting greater speed. 
There were many difficulties in the way, how- 
ever, and at the end of four years of experiment- 
ing he was about ready to confess that the ob- 
stacles were insurmountable. One night in 1846, 
while still in this mood, he resumed his experi- 
ments ; the more he reviewed the problem, the 
more difficult it seemed. In despair he was about 
to give it up for the night, when there flashed 
across his brain a plan for securing the type on 
the surface of a cylinder. This was the solution 
of the problem, and within a year our leading 
newspapers had their " Lightning " presses, in 
which from four to ten cylinders were used to 
feed sheets of paper against the surface of the 
type as it flew around. So recently as 1870 the 
ten-cylinder Hoe press, printing twenty - five 
thousand sheets an hour, was considered a mar- 
vel. 

Then came the perfecting press, a far smaller 
machine, but capable of five times as much work, 
thanks to the substitution of rolls of paper for 
separate sheets fed in one by one. The device 
by which the web of paper after being printed 
on one side is turned over and printed on the 
other side in the same machine was another 
triumph of American ingenuity. Stereotyping 
made it possible to print from a dozen presses 
at the same time without the trouble of setting 
up new type, and inventions for pasting, folding, 



PAST AND PRESENT 285 

and counting the papers still further increased 
the speed at which papers may be issued, while 
at the same time decreasing the number of men 
employed as pressmen. In 1865 it required the 
services of twenty-six men and boys to print 
and fold twenty-five thousand copies of an eight- 
page paper in an hour. To-day a perfecting 
press, with the aid of four men, does four times 
as much work. It has been recently estimated 
that to print, paste, and fold the Sunday edition 
of one of the great newspapers with the ma- 
chinery of 1865 would require the services of 
five hundred persons. 



Thomas W. Harvey and Screw-making. 

The gimlet-pointed screw patented in 1838 by 
Thomas W. Harvey, of Providence, R. L, is a 
marked instance of an improvement so useful that 
we can scarcely realize that less than fifty years 
ago such screws were unknown to the carpenter, 
for it was not until 1846 that Harvey succeeded 
in getting people to abandon the old blunt-ended 
screw that we now occasionally find in build- 
ings put up before 1850. Harvey was a Vermont 
boy, born in 1795. His faculty for the invention 
of machinery for screw-making and other pur- 
poses gave him and his associates and successors 
— Angell, Sloan, and Whipple — great fortunes 
according to the estimate of that day. He died 
in 1856. 



286 



INVENTORS 



C. L. Sholes and the Typewriter. 

A great many men contributed to make the 
typewriter what it is to-day — as much of an im= 








I '///I-', / '.'11 ' 

C. L. Sholes, 

provement upon the pen as the sewing'-machine 
is upon the needle. So long ago as 1843 some 
patents were taken out for divers forms of writ- 
ing-machines, all more or less impracticable. It 
was not until C. L. Sholes, then of Wisconsin, 



PAST AND PRESENT 287 

took up the problem, in 1866, that the present 
form of a number of type-bars, arranged so that 
their ends strike upon a common centre, was de- 
vised. Sholes died in 1890, having also helped 
by many minor devices the increase in the use of 
writing-machines. From 1865 to 1873 he made 
thirty different working models of writing-ma- 
chines, devoting himself to the task almost day 
and night for eight years. 



B. B. HOTCHKISS AND HIS GUNS. 

American inventors have had, as a rule, but 
small success in making Europe see the value of 
their inventions before this country has proved 
it. Morse could get neither England nor France 
to take an interest in his telegraph schemes, and, 
at a later day, Bell's telephone was received 
in England as a curious device, but not worth 
investing money in. An exception to this rule 
may be found, however, in the case of B. B. 
Hotchkiss, a Connecticut inventor, who during 
the civil war conceived the idea of a breech- 
loading cannon. In 1869 Hotchkiss mounted 
one of his small guns in the Brooklyn Navy- 
yard, but found no encouragement to experi- 
ment further. The Franco-German war found 
him in Europe with a breech-loading gun that 
would throw shells. His success was such that 
there is not a civilized country where Hotchkiss 
guns, throwing light shells with a rapidity not 
dreamed of years ago, are not now in use. The 



288 



INVENTORS 



inventor has made a large fortune and has had 
the pleasure of sending to this country a number 
of guns for our cruisers, the Atlanta, the Boston, 




B B. Kotchkiss. 

the Chicago, and the Dolphin. So great is the 
rapidity, accuracy, and power of these Hotch- 
kiss rapid-lire guns that some experts expect to 
see two-thirds of an action fought with these or 
similar pieces, which they think will silence and 
put out of action all the heavy guns in a few 
minutes after the enemies come within fifteen 
hundred yards of each other. For instance, the 
latest piece is a six-pounder, which, with smoke- 
less powder, has a range of five thousand yards 
and an effective fighting range of one thousand 
yards, within which distance a target the size of 
a six-inch gun can be hit nearly every time and 



PAST AND PRESENT 289^ 

five inches of wrought iron perforated. A speed 

in firing of twenty-five shots a minute has been 
attained. 



Charles F. Brush and the Dynamo. 

A trifling incident revealed to an Italian sa- 
vant the fact that when two metals and the 
leg of a frog came into contact the muscles 
of the leg contracted. The galvanic battery 
resulted. Years later another observer discov- 
ered that if a wire carr3dng a current of electric- 
ity was wound around a piece of soft iron the 
latter became a magnet. Out of these simple 
discoveries have arisen the telegraph, the tele- 
phone, and a host of inventions depending upon 
electricity. x\nd to-day, with all the wonders 
accomplished in this field, we are yet upon the 
threshold of the enchanted palace that electricity 
is about to open to us. Through its aid we shall 
one day enjoy light, heat, and power almost as 
freely as we now enjoy air. The crops will be 
planted, watered, cultivated, gathered, and trans- 
ported to the uttermost ends of the earth by 
electricity. The steam-engine is said to do the 
work of two hundred million men, and to have 
been the chief agent in reducing the average 
working hours of men in the civilized world in 
this century from fourteen hours a day to ten. 
But electricity, according to even conservative 
judges, will accomplish infinitely more. It will 
make possible the harnessing of vast forces of 
19 



290 



INVENTORS 



nature, such as the falls of Niagara, because the 
electric current can be transported from place to 
place at small cost and it is easily transformed 
into lig-ht or power or heat. Within a few 
months we shall see the first results of the great 
work at Niagara. Before many years the power 
of the tides is certain to be used along the sea. 




Charles F. Brush. 



board for producing electricity. Here is a force 
equal to that of a million Niagaras going to 
waste. 

The late Clerk Maxwell, when asked by a dis- 
tinguished scientist what was the greatest scien- 
tific discovery of the last half-century, replied : 
'* That the Gramme machine is reversible." In 
other words, that power will not only produce 
electricity, but that electricity will produce 



PAST AND PRESENT 291 

power. By turning a big wheel at Niagara we 
can produce an electric current that will turn 
another wheel for us fifty, or perhaps five 
hundred miles away. The dynamo is one of the 
great achievements of the day to which Charles 
F. Brush, of Cleveland, O., has devoted him- 
self with much signal success. Brush was born 
in March, 1849, i^ Euclid Township near Cleve- 
land, and his early years were spent on his 
father's farm. When fourteen -years old he went 
to the public school at CoUamer, and later to the 
Cleveland High-school, and as early as 1862 dis- 
tinguished himself by making magnetic machines 
and batteries for the high-school. During his 
senior year in the high-school, the chemical and 
physical apparatus of the laboratory of the school 
was placed under his charge. In this year he 
constructed an electric motor having its field 
magnets as well as its armature excited by the 
electric current. He also constructed a micro- 
s-cope and a telescope, making all the parts him- 
self, down to the grinding of the lenses. He de- 
vised an apparatus for turning on the gas in the 
street-lamps of Cleveland, lighting it and turning 
it off again. When he was eighteen years of age 
he entered Michigan University at Ann Arbor, 
and, following his particular bent, was graduated 
as a mining engineer in 1869, one year ahead 
of his class. Returning to Cleveland he began 
work as an analytical chemist and soon became 
interested in the iron business. In 1875 Brush's 
attention was first called to electricity by George 
W. Stockly, who suggested that there was an im- 



292 INVENTORS 

mense field ready for a cheaper and more easily 
managed dynamo than the Gramme or Siemens, 
the best types then known. Stockl}^, who was in- 
terested in the Telegraph Supply Company, of 
Cleveland, agreed to undertake the manufacture 
of such a machine if one was devised. In two 
months Brush made a dynamo so perfect in every 
way that it was running until it was taken to the 
World's Fair in 1893. Having made a good dy- 
namo, the next step was a better lamp than those 
in use. Six months of experimenting resulted in 
the Brush arc light. Stockly was so well satisfied 
with the commercial value of these inventions 
that the Telegraph Supply Company, a small 
concern then employing about twenty-five men, 
was reorganized in 1879, ^s the Brush Electric 
Company. In 1880 the Brush Company put its 
first lights into New York City, and it has since 
extended the system until there is scarcely a 
town in the country where the light may not be 
found. Besides dynamos and lamps, the im- 
mense establishment at Cleveland employs its 
twelve hundred men in making carbons, storage- 
batteries, and electro-plating apparatus. Mr. 
Brush is a self-taught mechanic, able to do any 
work of his shops in a manner equal to that of 
an expert. He is intensely practical, never over- 
sanguine, and an excellent business man. If a 
delicate piece of work is to be done for the first 
time, he will probably do it with his own hands. 
He is not fond of experiment for the experi- 
ment's sake; he wants to see the practical utility 
of the aim in view before devoting time to its at- 



PAST AND PRESENT 293 

tainment. Of the scores of patents he has taken 
out, two-thirds are said to pay him a revenue. 
In 1 88 1, at the Paris Electrical Exposition, Brush 
received the ribbon of the Legion of Honor. 
In personal appearance there is nothing of the 
round-shouldered, impecunious, studious inven- 
tor about him. He is six feet or more in height, 
and so fine a specimen of manhood that Gam- 
betta, the French statesman, once remarked that 
the man impressed him quite as much as the 
inventor. 



ElCKEMEYER AND HiS MOTOR. 

In the same field of electricity, as applied to 
every-day life, a Bavarian by birth, but an Amer- 
ican by adoption, Rudolf Eickemeyer, of Yon- 
kers, has done some valuable Avork in devising 
a useful form of dynamo. His machines are 
now used almost exclusively for elevators and 
hoisting apparatus, one large firm of elevator 
builders having put in no less than six hundred 
Eickemeyer motors within the last four 3^ears. 
As electricity becomes more and more useful 
for small powers, such as lathes, pumps, and ele- 
vators, an effective and simple motor becomes 
of the utmost importance. Rudolf Eickemeyer 
was born in October, 1831, at Kaiserslautern, 
Bavaria, where his father was employed as a 
forester. He was educated at the Darmstadt 
Polytechnic Institute and at once showed a pre- 
dilection for scientific work. When still a bov 



294 INVENTORS 

he joined the Revolutionists under Siegel, and 
after the upheaval of 1848 came here with Siegel, 
Carl Schurz, and George Osterheld, the latter 
afterward becoming his partner. The young 
man's first work here was as an engineer on the 
Erie Railroad line, then building. In 1854 he es- 
tablished himself in Yonkers in the business of 
repairing the tools used in the many hat-shops of 
that already flourishing city. The next twenty 
years of his life were devoted to inventions and 
improvements in every branch of hat-making. 
His shaving-machines, stretchers, blockers, press- 




Rudolph Eickemeyer. 



ers, ironers, and sewing-machines substituted 
mechanism for laborious and slow methods of 
hand work. At the beginning of the war Eicke- 
meyer was quick to see the opportunity for 



PAST AND PRESENT 295 

turning his factory to other uses, and vast quan- 
tities of revolvers were made there. When that 
industry declined, he took up the manufacture 
of mowing-machines, having invented a driving 
mechanism for such . machines that met with 
wide favor. The introduction of the Bell tele- 
phone in Yonkers first turned Eickemeyer's at- 
tention to electricity, and for the last ten years 
he has devoted himself almost exclusively to the 
invention and manufacture of electric motors. 
His first successful invention in this field was a 
dynamo to furnish light for railroad trains. 
From this he was led to the invention of a dyna- 
mo capable of doing effective work at much 
lower speed than that usually employed, and 
this has proved to be his most valuable achieve- 
ment. Some improvements in winding the arma- 
tures have also been accepted as valuable and 
adopted by other manufacturers. In connection 
with storage batteries Mr. Eickemeyer has also 
done a good deal of interesting work. But he 
is chiefly known to the electrical world as the 
inventor of a most useful dynamo for power 
purposes. For the last forty years he has been 
one of the men who have most aided in the 
growth of Yonkers, taking great interest in all 
questions pertaining to its government and 
school system. He was married in 1856 to 
Mary T. Tarbell, of Dover, Me., and his eldest 
son, Rudolf Eickemeyer, Jr., is associated with 
him in business. 



296 



INVENTORS 



George Westinghouse, Jr., and the Air- 
brake. 

George Westinghouse, Jr., to whom is due the 
railroad air-brake, and who was also largely in- 
strumental in revolutionizing Pittsburgh by the 
introduction of natural gas, was born at Cen- 




Genrge Westinghouse, Jr. 

tral Bridge, in Schoharie County, N. Y., in 1846. 
His father was a builder and, later, superinten- 
dent of the Schenectady Agricultural Works, 
and it was in the shops of these works that the 
boy found his vocation. Before he was fifteen 
he had modelled and built a steam engine. The 



PAST AND PRESENT 297 

war took him away from work in 1864, but when 
that was over he returned to Schenectady and, 
although yet in his teens, he began to attempt 
improvements upon every device that presented 
itself. Sometimes he was successful. Among 
one of his first valuable achievements was a 
steel railroad frog that resulted in a good deal 
of money and some reputation. This was in 
1868. While in Pittsburgh making his frogs, 
which sold well, he one day -came across a news- 
paper account of the successful use of com- 
pressed air in piercing the Mont Cenis tunnel. 
His success in the field of railroad appliances 
had led him to study the question of better 
brakes, and the suggestion of compressed air 
came to him as a revelation. To stop a train by 
the old methods was a matter of much time and 
a tremendous expenditure of muscular energy 
by the brakeman, whose exertions were not al- 
ways effective enough to prevent disaster. West- 
inghouse consulted one or two friends, who were 
inclined to ridicule the idea that a rubber tube 
strung along under the cars could do better 
'work than the men at the brakes. Fortunately, 
he was able to make the experiment, and the air- 
brake was speedily recognized as one of the im- 
portant inventions of the century. 

When petroleum was discovered in the fields 
near Pittsburgh, some ten years ago, Mr. West- 
inghouse was greatly interested, and at once 
suggested that perhaps oil might be found near 
his own home in Washington County. He de- 
cided to test the matter, and planted a derrick 



298 INVENTORS 

on his own grounds. The drill was started in 
December, 1883, and at a depth of 1,560 feet a 
vein was struck, not of oil, as was anticipated, 
but — what had not been counted upon as among 
the contingencies — of gas. Gas was not what 
Westinghouse was after or wanted, but there it 
was, and not wishing to let it run to waste, he 
began to consider what use could be made of it. 
Other people who had been boring for oil also 
struck gas, which, taking fire, shot up twenty or 
thirty feet. If such gas could be made to serve 
foundry purposes, here was a gigantic power 
going to waste. Within three years the business 
grew to be an immense one. The company or- 
ganized by Mr. Westinghouse owned or con- 
trolled fifty-six thousand acres, upon which were 
one hundred wells and a distributing plant of four 
hundred miles of pipes. Notwithstanding the 
failure of some of the wells since then, natural 
gas is an extraordinary boon for which Pittsburgh 
has to thank Mr. Westinghouse. Of late years 
this inventor's energies have been turned toward 
electric machinery for lighting and power, espe- 
cially as applied to railroad purposes, and a num- 
ber of useful devices have resulted. Mr. West- 
inghouse is still in the prime of life and is activity 
personified. He makes his home in Pittsburgh, 
and is naturally looked upon as one of its lead- 
ing spirits. 

The field of electric invention is so vast and so 
actively worked that one cannot take up a news- 
paper without finding reference to some new 



PAST AND PRESENT 299 

achievement made possible by this ^vonderful 
agent, whose real powers were unsuspected fifty 
years ago. Aside from the direct value of these 
inventions in promoting the comfort and increas- 
ing the wealth of the country there is another 
factor to be considered having the most vital re- 
lation to the industries of the country and its 
powers of production. The large number of in- 
ventions made in these United States implies a 
high degree of intelligence and mental activity 
in the great body of the people. It indicates 
trained habits of observation and trained powers 
of applying knowledge which has been acquired. 
It shows an ability to turn to account the forces 
of Nature and train them to the service of man, 
such as has been possessed by the laborers of 
no other country. It suggests as pertinent the 
inquiry whether any other country is so well 
equipped for competition in production as our 
own ; whether in any other country the mechanic 
is so efficient and his labor, therefore, so cheap 
as in our own ; whether he does not exhibit the 
seeming paradox of receiving more for his labor 
than in any other country, and at the same time 
doing more for what he receives. 

THE END. 



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